Lightwave Logic Inc (LWLG)

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Testing silicon photonics is complicated

Conclusion
Silicon photonics is being used in more designs to provide high-throughput data pathways with low heat, but standards for designing, manufacturing, and especially testing this technology have been slow to follow. That’s beginning to change.

“We are finally seeing the industry develop modifications to standard test equipment in order to support testing of high-density optical engines,” said Manish Mehta, vice president of marketing and operations, Optical Systems Division at Broadcom. “It is critically important over the next three to five years that test equipment developers continue to invest in the space because testability is going to be a key part of the industry’s ability to scale.”

As Advantest’s Armstrong summed it up: “We need standards, but they need to be cost-effective. The test has to be short and sweet, but thorough.”

Testing silicon photonics is becoming more critical and more complicated as the technology is used in new applications ranging from medicine to cryptography, lidar, and quantum computing, but how to do that in a way that is both consistent and predictable is still unresolved.

Dave Armstrong, co-chairman of the Test TWIG of the Integrated Photonic Systems Roadmap (IPSR) and principal test strategist at Advantest America, pointed to some of the challenges that need to be tackled. “A comprehensive test solution needs four things —
optical positioning, optical instruments, a digital interface and control, and an analog thermal control interface and control,” he said.
“Most optical instruments have a heater built into them to control the wavelength, so the control loop of the heaters and the device temperature is a fourth domain you have to control in order to do an effective test of these devices.”

Standards: The Next Step For Silicon Photonics
Karen Heyman https://semiengineering.com March 7th, 2023

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