OneChip Photonics Inks Foundry Deals

Photonic integrated circuit (PIC) maker OneChip Photonics is extending its fabless manufacturing approach to the high-volume data center interconnect (DCI) market through partnerships with two epitaxial wafer (epi-wafer) foundries, the company announced recently. OneChip uses indium phosphide (InP) wafers to produce its PICs for the DCI and passive optical network markets.

OneChip's regrowth-free multiguide vertical integration (MGVI) platform eliminates the need for multiple epitaxial growth steps and enables OneChip to decouple and outsource epitaxial growth and wafer processing. Under this fabless model, OneChip is working with III-V semiconductor epitaxy service provider IQE to produce its 4-in. InP-based epi-wafers, and with foundry Global Communication Semiconductors (GCS) to process them.

OneChip said GCS' opto- and heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) processes in InP share the same process as its PIC technologies and provide an optoelectronic integrated circuit platform that enables electronic and photonic integration on one substrate for the first time within the same fabrication procedure.

The high-volume DCI market requires 100-Gb/s+ solutions with higher interface density and longer reach than those within the reach of currently deployed systems in 0.85 µm and multimode fibers. DCI is also less expensive and less power-hungry than products offered by traditional telecom component vendors, OneChip said.

For more information, visit: www.onechipphotonics.com