© 2012

Silicon Photonics:

Big Investments, Small Business

© 2012 • 2

Report Content• Table of Content … 3

• Companies listed in the report … 5

• What’s inside the report, what’s not … 6

• Executive Summary … 7

– The (few) key facts to remember about silicon photonics … 8

– Silicon photonics definition … 11

– Silicon photonics market … 12

– Silicon photonics advantages … 13

– Silicon photonics time-to-market … 14

– Inflection points for silicon photonics … 15

– Silicon photonics devices … 16

– Silicon photonics application revenues … 17

– Silicon photonics dies market forecast … 18

– Silicon photonics wafer forecast … 19

– Why silicon photonics only in AOCs today … 20

– Technical challenges … 21

• Introduction … 22

– Silicon photonics definition … 23

– Focus on III-V integrated photonics … 27

– Focus on silicon photonics … 36

• Industry driving forces … 43

– Roadmaps … 44

– Datacom protocols roadmap … 50

• Applications … 56

– Applications summary … 57

– Telecom … 66

– Datacom … 71

– HPC & Data Centers … 75

– Consumer … 89

– Others (Military/Aerospace/Medical) … 92

• Market forecast … 97

– Silicon photonics TAM … 98

– Optical components market forecast … 99

– Silicon photonics applications revenues 2010-2017 … 102

– Silicon photonics 2012 revenues by application … 103

– Silicon photonics 2017 revenues by application … 104

– Active vs. passive silicon photonics revenues 2010-2017 … 105

– Silicon photonics products breakdown … 108

– Silicon photonics dies market forecast … 111

– Silicon photonics wafer forecast … 112

– Estimated 2011 market share … 113

• Silicon photonics players … 114

– Evolution of the business model … 115

– Silicon photonics foundries … 118

• Financial analysis … 121

– Raised funds by company … 123

– Relative investment efficiency … 125

• The different manufacturing approaches … 126

– Photonic in standard CMOS … 127

– Laser sources vs. VCSELs … 133

– The different approaches to Si photonics integration … 135

– The different bonding technologies … 142

– Design & packaging issues … 149

– A new approach: 2.5 and 3D … 152

• The integrated photonics « building blocks » … 157

– Summary … 158

– Light sources … 163

– Modulators … 168

– Detectors … 173

– Mux/Demux … 176

– Couplers … 178

– Passive devices … 181

– Others … 181

• Conclusions … 183

• 20+ Company Profiles … 186

• Appendix … 212

• Yole Développement presentation … 213

© 2012 • 3

What is inside this report, what is not• In this report, Yole is investigating primarily active silicon photonic devices:

– Lasers, detectors, VOAs, optical switches other active elements that have an electrical or electronic control of

the optics. Active devices and elements generate light, detect light or actively change the direction, intensity,

color or polarization of light signals.

• Not included are passive devices that may be based on silicon and glass.

– These include silica-on-silicon, Silicon dioxide (SiO2) or other technologies.

– Examples of these devices are Array Wave Guides (AWGs), optical filters, couplers, splitters, polarizers, taps,

combiners, optical connectors, Planar Light Circuits (PLC) etc.

– Most of these devices are simply coatings on glass or silicon and are passive devices that have been built for

many years.

• Passive Silicon photonics - However, these devices mentioned can be built using silicon photonics

fabrication technologies and sold as individual devices.

– We include these in “passive silicon photonics” and in active silicon photonics as elements when integrated.

• Not included: Solar cells, silicon photo detectors, sensors (fiber or temperature, pressure, audio, etc.),

coated glass windows, general optics, lenses, mirrors, etc..

• Main focus is on Si photonics but we also describe integrated photonics trends.

2 Input x32 Output Passive Optical Splitter

Chaoqian

Fujitsu Si Photonics Optical SwitchRing Resonator Optical Switch

Passive Glass-based Devices Active Silicon Photonic Devices

Bragg Grating Filter

© 2012 • 4

Si photonics, CMOS photonics, III-V integrated photonics comparison

Si photonics CMOS photonics Hybrid photonics III-V photonics

Substrate • SOI • SOI • SOI • InP, GaAs

Technology • Few transistors

(current/voltage driver)

and NOT complex CMOS

& digital logic

• Monolithic CMOS to build

transistors and digital logic

combined with silicon

photonics elements to build

optical subcomponents –

both on the same chip and

SOI substrate

• Both Si and III-V material

are processed on SOI

wafers

• Usually Ge is deposited

for detection

• Fully monolithically

integrated process using

photonics foundry and III-

V materials usually InP or

GaAs

Laser

source

integration

• Lasers are either die

bonded/flip-chipped (2012)

• Possible monolithic

integartion (log term)

• III-V material is used for

laser effect. e.g. InP

bonded to a wafer/chip

• Monolithic integartion

2012 R&D

status

• Developments to built

lasers into Si (major

research effort today)

• Still basic R&D (except

Luxtera).

• Close to final R&D stage • Mature

Pros • Very high integration

• Low cost

• Wafer level

• Large number of transistors

• High integration

• Wafer level testing

• Potential low cost

• Market will be mainly for

DWDM telecom

• Very efficient for light

generation and detection,

high integration, mature

technology, existing

markets

Cons • Issues with laser sources

• Heat management issues

• Technology nodes for

photonics and electronics

are different

• Heat management issue

(from the electronics)

• Very complex material

systems, low integration,

low efficiency, high cost

• Very high cost, limited

upwards integration

capabilities, no CMOS

compatible processes

possible (yet)

• InP is very expensive and

wafers are tiny 1”-3”

compared to silicon at

8,12-inch and soon 18-

inches

© 2012 • 5

High

Reliability

High

Integration

Low power

Consumption

Silicon photonics

Potential advantages

Low error rate

Good spectral

efficiency

Low

manufacturing

cost

Higher density of

interconnects

Low

environmental

footprint

Low operating

costs

Low heating of

components

Possibility to

integrate more

optical

functionalities in

a single

componentSource Caliopia

The potential advantages for Si photonics are:

• Low power consumption

• High integration

• High reliability

© 2012 • 6

Silicon photonics devices

The different devices addressed by Silicon photonics are:

• Individual Components and sub-components

– Optical components – a single function silicon photonics device:

• VOA, Multiplexer/demultiplexer, Active filters, Optical switches,

• Sensor element

– Optical engines – optics and electronics combined into an opto-electronic subassembly “engine”.

Packaged with other components and an aluminum shell to create a transceiver, transmitter, sensor

subsystem, etc..

• Transceiver-type Products

– Embedded modules (EMs) – transceivers or transmitters, and receivers designed for use inside a systems

and mounted on a PCB.

– Transceivers, transmitters, and receivers –devices designed to be plugged into a system front panel

connector slot; usually on a system external front panel.

– Active optical cables (AOCs) – a set of optical fibers with transceivers integrated on both ends to form a

single, pluggable cable that contains the optics inside and presents only an electrical connection outside.

• Future Products

– Hybrid packaged devices and 3DICs – Co-packaged silicon photonics with an ASIC either side-by-side or

3DIC bonded

– Integrated opto-electronic chips – a single device with electronics and optics integrated on the same chip

– It is important to note that passive optical elements (such as array wave guides, optical filters, couplers, splitters, polarizer

arrays) can be created with silicon photonics technologies and integrated with active elements.

© 2012 • 7

Silicon photonics market

• Silicon photonics has tremendous potential as a new technology to blend optical technology

with low cost CMOS semiconductor processing.

• But there are still many challenges ahead.

• The main problems in Silicon photonics development are:

1. Few products - most of the industry has been focused on developing individual silicon photonics

elements and cores. Few companies have developed integrated product solutions.

2. High cost – devices have been expensive to develop;

1. Silicon photonics companies have had to create their own CAE/CAD programs

2. Only in 2011, did open market CAE/CAD programs become available. Suppliers are very few in number

3. Several efforts have been established to promote CAE/CAD design tools. See OpSIS and LETI-Mentor

3. Technical miss-matches - with high volume markets

• Data centers want 850-nm and 1310-nm

• Consumers want very inexpensive products, but silicon photonics is still expensive

4. Competition with VCSEL-based alternatives

• VCSEL-based interconnects dominate both the data center and consumer areas with very low prices.

5. Need for high volumes - Manufacturing CMOS semiconductors is like the printing business where the

design costs are amortized over high volumes. The key to low costs are high volumes. Silicon Photonics

has not been able to achieve high enough volumes due to a number of constraints that impact costs.

• Most research so far has been in developing high-speed individual elements and cores

– Modulators, VOAs, switches, laser arrays, detector arrays, etc.

– Most of the core optical control elements have been developed

– Now about its about low power consumption, transmission characteristics and high data rates

– Not much development has gone into integrated “products” (except for a few startups)

© 2012 • 8

Si photonics

activity (2012)

Business model

Product

manufacturing

(> 100,000

chips)

R&D/

development

stage

R&D/MPW DevicesFoundriesFabless Systems

Product

manufacturing

(< 100,000

chips)

OpSIS foundry services uses BAE & IME foundries

JePPIX foundry uses Oclaro & FhG HHI foundries (InP)

ePIXfab uses IMEC & LETI foundries

Business Models

© 2012 • 9

2015 2020

Est. Total Available Market (Munits)

100k

1M

10M

>100M

<10k

Telecom

Military/

Aero/

Scientific

Today (2012)Time to Market

MedicalData

Centres

Consumer

Board-to-

board/

Chip-to-

chip

High Perf

Computing

Si Photonic Applications TAM

© 2012 • 10

$-

$40

$80

$120

$160

$200

$240

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Silicon Photonics Market (US$M)

Si Photonic Market Forecasts

© 2012 • 11

Slides extracted from report

© 2012 • 12

Slides extracted from report