Fabrication Challenges and Opportunities in Photonics

March 10-11, 2010 - Network Meeting Center - Santa Clara, CA

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Organizers: OIDA (Optoelectronics Industry Development Association) and IPCA (International Photonics Commercialization Alliance) 

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This forum will expand on the topics discussed at OIDA’s 2005 forum: Challenge of InP Photonic Development and the Optical Foundry. We will review what has changed from that workshop and to shift the focus of the discussion from one of the “supplier” to examining, in more detail, the challenges and needs from the perspective of the user community; small, cash-poor, innovative startups, custom design houses and IDMs (integrated device manufacturers) who may want to take advantage of access to external resources and capabilities.

It is critical to have a better understanding of this perspective in order to further develop the “fabless/foundry” model and to take the opportunity to explore and to understand the strengths of other options.

There are several pre-existing examples, (outside of InP photonics) that may be used to benchmark the process and to provide some input to the discussion of evolving the fabless InP photonic device business model.

Perhaps the first and closest example is the evolution of “fabless” silicon photonics businesses and how it aligned with an already established silicon foundry industry. While there are unique challenges that only apply to silicon photonics, there are still many lessons to be learned that may be useful to the III/V photonics world.

A more mature example of a complex fabless/foundry relationship (and an arguably successful business model) that in some aspects mirrors the additional complexities and challenges presented by III/V photonics, is the RF/Analogue industry and its fabless/ foundry business model. Over a number of years a robust foundry network has been developed to support a diverse design, process and application environment.

Focusing next on the subject of InP photonics, the forum will discuss existing foundries and fabless organizations working in III/V photonics. These organizations may include pure play, photonic IDM’s or electronic IDM’s selling excess capacity and also those fabless organizations that utilize those resources.

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