Skorpios Demonstrates CMOS Tunable Laser

Skorpios Technologies Inc. has demonstrated a full C-band tunable CMOS photonic laser manufactured in a commercial foundry using its proprietary STAB wafer-scale integration process.

The process provides a photonic CMOS integrated circuit that is planar and hermetically encapsulated. It does not require costly postfabrication assembly processes such as flip-chip bonding, turning mirrors, lenses or active alignments. The laser’s performance — including narrow linewidth, high side mode suppression, wide tuning range and no requirement for active cooling or hermetic packaging — makes it suitable for applications from data center interconnects to high-performance coherent long-haul systems supporting data rates exceeding 100 Gb/s.

“This is a quantum leap forward in the level of photonic integration and represents a key missing piece of the silicon photonics puzzle, moving the laser in-chip and delivering a truly single chip solution,” said Stephen Krasulick, Skorpios Technologies’ founder and CEO. “The demonstration of the narrow-linewidth, tunable laser is just the first example of a class of devices that STAB enables.”

The STAB process also delivers wafer-scale, single-chip integration of optoelectronic devices and CMOS, enabling extremely low-cost and scalable solutions, the company said.

“The demonstrated CMOS laser is a crucial step toward the vision of truly integrated photonics,” said Dr. Amit Mizrahi, Skorpios’ chief scientist.

Skorpios will demonstrate the laser March 19-21 at OFC/NFOEC 2013 in Anaheim, Calif.

For more information, visit: www.skorpiosinc.com