Thin film lithium niobate foundry
We are building a first of its kind fab devoted to processing thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) fabrication in Tempe, Arizona.
TFLN is rapidly emerging as the new darling child of the telecommunications industry. There is a growing consensus that thin-film lithium niobate will most likely become a key enabler of 1.6 and 3.2 terabit modules for data centers. TFLN modulators operate at an extremely low Vπ-length product which offers the benefit of significantly reducing the overall device size, thereby enabling high-density heterogeneous integration and copackaging. To realize these benefits both a robust supply chain for TFLN wafers and access to commercial fabs that will process TFLN is essential.
The future of integrated photonics
Thin film lithium niobate, or TFLN, overcomes the biggest limitation of bulk lithium niobate: the inability to tightly confine light. Although lithium niobate itself is an old material with a proven 60 year history of utility as the active element in transducers and non-linear optical components, thin film lithium niobate has many new exciting applications in communications, computing, and more.
High Density Encoding
TFLN can extend the modulation bandwidth and efficiency of existing telecom infrastructure without extending the spectral range.It also enables 200 GB+ per lane encoding and has a high baud rate for 1.6 and 3.2 terabit
Power Efficiency
TFLN has a considerable advantage in energy efficiency in that it has low insertion and propagation losses and low driving voltage (differential driving with CMOS allows sub-volt modulation). It has high modulation efficiency, which enables switching with less than five femtojoules per bit.
Heterogeneous Integration
TFLN is ideal for high density integration with CMOS via flip-chip bonding. This capability extends the lifetime of pluggables and enables co-packaged optics. The ability to fabricate diverse linear, nonlinear and electrooptical components on the TFLN PIC, and the compatibility with CMOS devices, further enables integration with existing infrastructure. The fast MPW processing cycles, which are fostered by the relatively simple device architectures, result in additional R&D savings.
What we make with it
The fab has both front end and packaging capabilities for a 150 mm wafer line, as well as the ability to design, simulate and characterize TFLN devices, such as
Electro Optical Modulators
Periodically Poled waveguides and micro-rings for High Harmonic Generation
Micro Rings, filters and other components