Foundry's perspective on laser and SOA module integration with silicon photonics

TL;DR

This paper discusses silicon photonics integration challenges and presents a foundry's perspective on combining laser sources and SOA modules with silicon photonic circuits for scalable, cost-effective optical systems.

Contribution

It provides insights into integration solutions and the foundry's approach to combining laser and SOA modules with silicon photonics.

Findings

Silicon's properties enable high-density optical circuits.

Integration of light sources remains a key challenge.

Foundry perspectives guide scalable integration strategies.

Abstract

Silicon photonic integrated circuit (PIC) builds on the demand for a low cost approach from established silicon-based manufacturing infrastructure traditionally built for electronics. Besides its natural abundance, silicon has desirable properties such as optically low loss (at certain critical wavelengths), and small form factor to enable high density scaled-up optical on-chip circuitry. However, given its indirect bandgap, the platform is typically integrated with other direct bandgap (e.g., III-V semiconductor) platforms for on-chip light source. An effective solution to integrating light source onto silicon photonics platform is integral to a practical scaled-up and full-fledged integrated photonics implementation. Here, we discuss the integration solutions, and present our foundry's perspective toward realizing it.