Backed through our years-long expertise on optical systems, VLC Photonics provides system-level engineering services to enable the exploration of photonic integration for a specific application or field. VLC Photonics can support you with the technical feasibility evaluation for integrating a given optical system, and to deliver an extensive performance modeling of the expected solution, along with then main technological choices and design building blocks available.

Most importantly, VLC Photonics can support on the techno-economic evaluation, estimating the costs of every stage for prototyping and taking a photonic integrated circuit into production. Business considerations like intellectual property issues, cost escalation in production, or large volume transfers, can also be evaluated as part of these studies.

Based on your technical specifications, VLC Photonics can design a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) that implements the required functionalities on the target platform.

As a fabless and independent design house, we are skilled at the main photonic materials: IIIV semiconductors (InP and GaAs) and Silicon Photonics (thin and thick SOI, SiO₂/PLC, Si₃N₄/TriPleX^TM), combining multiple design frameworks and toolboxes.

Moreover, VLC Photonics has developed its own proprietary modules and libraries of functional building blocks, guaranteeing always the best performance and optimal design technology match to minimize risks.

We comply with industry standard design techniques for manufacturability, testability and packaging. Moreover, your intellectual property will always be confidential and secured, and any IP developed through the integration process can be transferred to you on demand.

Our services include:

• Custom design service: modelling, simulation and design of any required photonic components and building blocks for any required material platform (silicon photonics, silicon nitride, silica/PLC, III-V compounds like InP, GaAs, etc.).
• Layout service: layout of photonic integrated circuits according to a specific foundry process.
• Design support: engineering support for your in-house design team, to help on the design, layout and DRC tasks, as well as an overall review and check including advice on design for manufacturing, test and packaging.

VLC Photonics can manufacture any photonic circuit design for the main material platforms (InP, GaAs, SOI, SiO₂/PLC, Si₃N₄/TripleX^TM) through its foundry network, in what is known as fabless operation. In this way, VLC Photonics works closely with several foundries to always provide the best solution in terms of cost, timing and performance, but also reliability and yield.

Prototype runs usually range from a single PIC to a few tens of PICs, and risk and cycle time are greatly minimized through our significant experience with all foundry partners. Additionally, cost can be greatly reduced through the use of pre-scheduled Multi-Project Wafer runs (similar to electronics’ shuttle runs), where fabrications costs can be shared among multiple users.

Dedicated runs can scale the number of PICs to several tens or hundreds of dies, and also allow for more flexibility in terms of chip sizes, fabrication timing, or custom processings. VLC Photonics can also provide such service, including complete mask layout and process definitions and adaptations if required.

Finally, VLC Photonics can support you when moving to production, where larger volumes are manufactured. Depending on the end market to be addressed, this can mean from thousands to millions of PICs, and VLC Photonics has the expertise to guide you through the hurdles of desing adaptations, foundry transfer and logistics.

After fabrication, chips from the corresponding foundry can be fully characterized at VLC Photonics’ facilities. Physical as well as functional characterization is performed on the bare dies to evaluate the design performance and the manufacturing process and tolerances. Our labs include digital and analog testing equipment up to 40 GHz and several multi-probe stations with vertical and lateral coupling setups enclosed in clean vaults.

Eventually, if the PIC is also packaged, VLC Photonics can also provide device level testing of the electrical and optical characteristics and performance. This also includes thermal testing, and if required, environmental test and certification through external partners for specific applications (standard telecoms, space, harsh sensing, etc.).

Additionally, if required, PIC can also be assembled, packaged and connectorized electrically and optically through our external network of partners. As an independent solution provider, VLC Photonics works with many packaging companies, each of them providing different services and having different capabilities. The range of options include standard and custom packages, DC and RF connections, thermal control, external electronics (TIAs, drivers, etc.) or the use of fiber arrays and specialty fibers.

VLC Photonics can work side by side with foundries to develop a photonic Process Design Kit (PDK). This PDK can provide photonic designers with a standard and lower-risk design environment, customized for the foundry-specific data, models and processes. This way, the foundry eases the access to its infrastructure, attracting more users and increasing their productivity and yield, while faster amortizing and profiting its investment in equipment and technology.

Such PDK can provide access to component-level design and simulations, circuit layouts and DRC/verification tools together with accurate photonic device models in a unified software framework and workflow. The design kit libraries usually contain customizable, easily expandable building blocks for schematic capture, simulation, physical layout, and verification. These allow anyone to easily create a complete PIC design tailored to the foundry process technology, covering both the front and back-end of the development.

Since 2015 VLC Photonics has been delivering Photonic Integration related courses. Its expertise in the photonics field has allowed our engineers to master the development process of photonic integrated circuits. This has been materialized in custom and scheduled trainings twice a year.

The main topics covered in the design trainings are waveguides and couplers, Mach-Zehnder interferometers, ring resonators, thermo optics, circuit simulation and mask layout. Whereas the class lab and hands-on characterization trainings cover a wide range of topics such as an introduction to optical and DC equipment, how a PIC characterization setup works, how to perform both active and passive measurements, and finally, how to process and analyse the extracted data.

Find out on the previous and upcoming trainings in our news section.