Presentation abstract:

Much of the current conversation around silicon photonics is framed by AI data centre interconnects, but the same design and process bottleneck constrains a much wider set of applications – quantum computing, biosensing, LiDAR and other emerging photonic systems – many of which sit outside the well-trodden telecom wavelengths and standard SOI process.

Wave Photonics has built pdk.dev, a foundry enablement platform that supports custom process design kits across a wide range of wavelengths and materials, including SOI, SiN, TFLN and AlN, compatible with all major EDA tools and complete with ready-calculated S-parameters for simulation. This is backed by a core computational design technology so, rather than the 6+ months a bespoke PDK build traditionally takes, designs can be delivered in 3 weeks. This lets foundries qualify new processes faster and allows fabless design teams to port and iterate designs across multiple platforms and target wavelengths with confidence.

This talk will look at what it takes to build integrated photonics design infrastructure that works across this broader landscape of materials and wavelengths, not just the telecom-band silicon photonics used in data centre interconnects, and share what we're learning from foundry and customer engagements spanning quantum, sensing and other non-telecom applications as the wider ecosystem scales up.