We present a 1×13 channel silicon nitride arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) fabricated on a 300 mm silicon photonics platform. The device operates across the C and L bands (1500-1620 nm) with a measured insertion loss of 0.92 dB and a crosstalk of-37.5 dB (median across 29 dies on the wafer). Each channel exhibits a 3 dB bandwidth of 118.6 GHz, with a channel spacing of 187 GHz. The free spectral range (FSR) of the AWG is 20 nm. The device footprint is compact, measuring 1.65 mm × 0.75 mm. Fabrication was carried out using AIM Photonics’ 300 mm CMOS-compatible process at the Albany Nanotech Complex. This work presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of the AWG, including an analysis of die-to-die performance variations.

In this work, we demonstrate an all-silicon thermo-optic tunable micro-ring modulator using AIM Photonics' 300 mm process technology. We used silicon on insulator (SOI) technology to define our waveguides and create our heater elements. The modulator includes a 7-mu m-radius silicon ring waveguide and a silicon straight waveguide outside the ring, with a coupling gap. The rib height and width of the modulator are 110 nm and 1 mu m, respectively. The 1-mu m-wide rib is attached to a full-height silicon of approximately 1 mu m width for modulator contact regions. The heater element is positioned after the modulator contact regions and a voltage of up to 8 V is applied to the heater to thermally tune these devices. The modulator heater performance is tested by measuring the resonance shift of the modulators with and without introducing trenches outside the devices. A non-trenched modulator reported to shift the resonance of approximately 1.7 nm at the applied voltages of 8V, while the same applied voltages shift the resonances of approximately 13.7 nm with the trenched modulator. The trenches are expected to trap heat within the device areas, while the non-trenched modulator spreads it outside the device, reducing thermal tuning efficiency. It is noted that the trenched devices are eight times more thermally efficient in tuning the resonances than the non-trenched traditional thermally tunable modulators.

In this work, a 5-mu m radius compact silicon microring modulator was fabricated using the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics' (AIM Photonics') 300 mm process technology, which shows results with a wide free spectral range, large extinction ratio, and high modulation efficiency. The modulator device includes a single-bus, straight silicon waveguide, and a circular ring made of a silicon waveguide. The circular ring has a radius of 5 mu m, and a 220-nm thick silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide is used for the circular ring and straight waveguides. The straight and ring waveguides use a rib structure with a 110-nm thick slab for electrical connections. The width of the core waveguide is 480 nm for both the ring and the straight waveguides to support single-mode light transmission. The coupling gap between the ring and the bus waveguide is designed to be 100 nm. The modulator is designed with a lateral PN junction and operates with a carrier injection principle. Three-level doping is applied for smooth electrical connectivity between the core, and the contact area where the core is doped with the minimum concentration and the contact silicon area is doped with the highest concentration. The modulator is tested with a laser coupled to the device using grating couplers, which are used to couple input and output light. The modulator performs over a wide spectral range of 20 nm, exhibits a large extinction ratio, and has a high modulation efficiency of about 1.5 nm at 1.0 V.

In this work, we demonstrate an all-silicon tunable add-drop filter developed in AIM Photonics 300 mm process technology. The filter includes a 7-mu m radius silicon ring waveguide and two silicon straight waveguides outside the ring with a coupling gap of 150 nm. The filter tuning function is achieved by integrating a doped silicon-based resistive heater. For this tunable filter, the doped silicon-based heater strip is placed around the ring and outside two straight waveguides with a lateral distance of 450 nm. The thickness of the heater strip is 220 nm, which is the same as the filter waveguide thickness and the width of the heater element is designed to be 1 mu m, while the width of the waveguide for the filter is 550 nm. The silicon strip is doped with a doping concentration of 1020 to make it an efficient heater element. The add-drop filter is tested with a laser over 120 nm from 1500-1620 nm. The light is coupled to the filter using grating couplers, which couple input and output light. The 3 dB filter bandwidth of a single resonance is about 0.3 nm and can be tuned up to 4 nm by applying 20 mW (6 V) of electrical power to the thermal heater. It is expected that the filter can be tuned over its full free spectral range of 13 nm by applying 20 V to the thermal heater..

Lasers integrated in a silicon photonics flow are critical to support emerging applications in co-packaged optics. To maintain a low power budget, it is essential to design waveguide couplers that transfer power from lasers to the photonics integrated circuit with minimal coupling loss. In this work, an automation flow is presented for designing waveguide couplers for 2.5D hybrid-integrated lasers in the silicon photonics process flow. These couplers were developed using a 300 mm CMOS-compatible silicon photonics process developed at the Albany NanoTech Complex in Albany, NY. Prefabricated III-V laser dies were bonded into etched pockets on the wafer in a butt-coupling configuration using precision pick-and-place tools. The automation flow was developed to design waveguide couplers optimized for low insertion loss in addition to high misalignment tolerance. Simulation results and initial experimental validations demonstrate the effectiveness of the coupler designs, with one design achieving an average insertion loss of 3.1 dB.

We demonstrate a vertical-junction, carrier-injection, micro-ring modulator that is fabricated using AIM Photonics' 300 mm Quantum FLEX Platform which shows results with high modulation efficiency and a large ON-OFF ratio. The modulator device includes a ring and a single-bus, straight waveguide. The ring has a radius of 7 mu m and a 220 nm siliconon-insulator (SOI) waveguide is used both for the ring and the straight waveguides with a rib structure of 110-nm slab thickness. The width of the core waveguide is 550 nm for both the ring and the straight waveguides. The slab width between the full-height silicon core and contact area is kept at 1 mu m on both sides from the 550-nm core. The coupling gap between the ring and the bus waveguide is designed to be 150 nm. To make the waveguide core vertical junction, the upper half of the core is n-doped and the lower half is p-doped. To have a smooth electrical connectivity between the core and the contact area, three-level doping is applied where the core is doped with the minimum concentration and the contact silicon area is doped with the highest concentration. The modulator is tested with a tunable laser over a 100-nm window extending from 1485 nm to 1585 nm. The light is coupled to the modulator using grating couplers which are used to couple input and output light. The vertical junction shows excellent direct current (DC) I- V characteristics and the modulator performs at high modulation efficiency of about 1.14 nm and a large ON-OFF ratio of about 21 dB at 1.0 V.

Silicon-nitride-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs) can operate with low loss at visible and near-infrared wavelengths. This spectral range is essential for many applications in chemical and biological sensing, quantum sensing and networking, physical sensing, precision timekeeping, and augmented/virtual reality. At present, high-quality silicon nitride PIC platforms optimized for operation in the visible are offered by low-volume custom foundries or by 200 mm silicon-based foundries. Both typically lack the minimum feature sizes and wafer throughput required for high-yield, high-volume operation at short wavelengths. In this work we describe a new component library and foundry process developed at AIM Photonics, a state-of-the-art PIC foundry. The TLX-VIS component library for the Silicon Nitride Passive PIC process is designed to operate in three bands at wavelengths from 500 nm to 1000 nm. A trench down to the primary waveguide layer is offered for sensing applications, and a dicing trench enables access to waveguide facets for low loss edge coupling. Propagation losses range from 0.2 dB/cm at 785 nm to 2 dB/cm at 532 nm. The component library is designed for both the TE00 and TM00 modes and includes broadband directional couplers, polarization rotators, edge and grating couplers, lattice filters, and high-Q ring resonators. The waveguides have small minimum bend radii (<100 mu m) and low fluorescence, which is critical for applications in Raman sensing and quantum information. The component library and PICs are compatible with AIM Photonics' Test, Assembly, and Packaging facility, enabling fully-packaged, fiber-attached assemblies.

As silicon photonics-based circuit designs transition from lab to fab, an end-to-end automated measurement flow is required to address a unique combination of high flexibility in test conditions and high volume. This paper describes such a flow for process design kit (PDK) development in the state-of-the-art 300 mm CMOS-compatible silicon photonics foundry at the Albany NanoTech Complex in Albany, NY. Presenting details of this measurement flow will offer considerable cost and time savings to new users in this area. The measurement flow begins at the layout stage, where users can instantiate various combinations of pre-characterized padsets that contain DC/RF pads and optical couplers, which are compatible with the automated electro-optic setup used for measurements. These padsets are offered via two options: (1) a script-based layout builder tool or (2) a parametric cell in a "Measurement Design Kit" offering in a design automation platform, which is an analog to a PDK. Special marker layers are added to the padsets, whose coordinates are extracted after the layout is complete. The coordinates are then passed to fiber positioners on the semi-automated prober while performing measurements. Electro-optic measurements are performed across the wafer using vertical coupling, which is well-suited for large-scale measurements. The wafer is placed on a 300 mm prober with automated fiber positioners that can optimize optical coupling across six degrees of freedom. The electro-optic measurement setup is based on the Keysight Photonic Application Suite. It includes a tunable laser, polarization synthesizer, and multi-channel detectors that measure transmission in both TE and TM polarizations. A lowloss optical switch matrix is programmed to switch connections between lasers and detectors to 16 grating couplers in the padset. The entire measurement setup, including the prober and instruments, is driven using the Python-based SweepMe! automation framework, which is modular and allows for the easy creation of test plans.

AIM Photonics design enablement platforms supporting photonic integrated circuit design, interposer-based assembly, and design-for-test for a 300 mm CMOS-compatible silicon-photonics foundry are presented.

A vertical-junction, carrier-depletion, micro-ring modulator is demonstrated with an extinction ratio around 30 dB, a modulation efficiency ~40 pm, and works with drive voltages as low as 0.5 V.

We present a compact polarization rotator design based on bilayer SiN that can convert TM input light to TE and vice versa. Polarization rotation is achieved by mode evolution, the device comprising of an escalator, rotator, and taper sections.

In this work we explain the methodology and techniques for building an end-to-end design enablement (DE) platform from component design to process design kit (PDK) release for silicon photonics-based photonic integrated circuit ( PIC) design. Elements of the DE include: component design, layout and test site development, measurement infrastructure and PDK development. Our methodology builds on the best practices followed in CMOS and RF foundries but adds unique features specific to silicon photonics. The DE flow is developed on the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics' (AIM Photonics) 300 mm silicon photonic technologies manufactured in a limited-volume foundry at the Albany Nanotech Complex, in Albany, NY. For component development, the AIM Photonics PDK offers a process stack file supported in Lumerical platform that applies linewidth corrections and doping information to imported layouts increasing the efficiency and accuracy of the design. For test sites, an automated layout and connectivity framework is explained that allows users to generate a layout from spreadsheet inputs that is also compatible with automated wafer-scale measurements. AIM Photonics PDKs include layout, models and design-rule-check (DRC) tools that are offered across multiple platforms. The DRC decks are offered in commercial tools such as Cadence and Synopsys, as well as KLayout. We present features of layouts and communication with schematics. In addition, we also explain techniques for processing and analyzing measured statistical data and extracting platform specific compact models. Presenting this methodology to the wider community is integral to the mission of AIM Photonics and will be of immense benefit particularly to small organizations engaged in prototype development.

Process design kits (PDKs) enable the rapid design of photonic integrated circuits with predictable performance. Compact modeling is an important step in developing PDKs. We explain the methodologies developed for creating compact models of some of the key silicon photonic components in AIM Photonics PDK.

In this work, we demonstrate a cascaded ring resonator based wide stop-band filter. The filter consists of four cascaded rings and a bus waveguide. The first ring has a radius of 7μm, the second, third and the fourth rings have radius of 7.01 μm, 7.02 μm, and 7.03 μm, respectively. The radius varion is designed for a small shift of resonant wavelength so that the combined resonance effect of four ring resonators exhibits a wide stop-band filter function compare to a single ring resonator. Both the bus and ring waveguides have a width of 480 nm. The thickness of the waveguides were 220 nm which is a standard silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer available in the market. A 100-nm gap is designed between the ring and the bus waveguide to provide optimum filtering. The device is fabricated using the American Institute for Manufacturing integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics) 300mm Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) service. It is tested using the AIM Photonics inline vertical grating coupled automated measurement tool with a tunable light source that has wavelengths ranging from 1485 nm to 1590 nm and a wavelength resolution of 60 pm. The fabricated cascaded ring filter exhibits a 3-dB stop-band about 6 nm wide with an extinction ratio of ~30 dB in across the S, C and L-bands. It is noted that the desired width of the stop-band is achievable by cascading required number of rings with slight radius variation.

In this work, we demonstrate a compact pn junction ring modulator with very large extinction ratio and high quality factor. The modulator consists of a 5-μm radius ring and a single-bus straight waveguide. Both the ring and straight waveguides have a width of 480 nm and heigh of 220 nm. The waveguides are rib-structured and the rib thickness is 110 nm with a slab thickness of 110 nm from a 300mm wafer with 220-nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) thickness. A 100-nm gap is designed between the rib ring and the bus waveguides. The modulator has three nominal doping levels with concentrations of 1018, 1019, and 1020 cm-3 for the core, slab, and the contact areas, respectively. The device is fabricated using the American Institute for Manufacturing integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics) Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) service. It is tested using the AIM Photonics inline vertical gratting coupled automated tool with a tunable light source that has wavelengths ranging from 1485 nm to 1590 nm and a wavelength resolution of 60 pm. The fabricated 5-μm radius ring modulator exhibits high quality output with a very large extinction ratio of 29 dB over a broad wavelength spectrum of about 100 nm. The device has a very wide free spectral range (FSR) of about 19 nm.

Compact models of microring resonators having high quality-factor are devel-oped in SiN sensors platform. The work involved fabrication, characterization, parameter extraction from the measured data, and model implementation in a standard electronic design automation platform.

A unique structured carrier depletion ring modulator is fabricated. We achieved high modulation efficiency of 0.9nm with a large extinction ratio of about 20dB. The device has a free spectral range of about 13nm.

In this work, we demonstrate a unique structured carrier injection silicon photonics micro-ring modulator that exhibits a large extinction ratio and a high modulation efficiency. The modulator consists of a ring and a double-bus straight waveguide. The ring has a radius of 7 µm and a 220-nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide is used both for the ring and the straight waveguides. The waveguide has a width of 450 nm and a slab thickness of 110 nm with a full silicon height (220 nm) for the contact area. The slab width is 1 µm on both sides from the 450-nm core width and the contact full silicon width is 1.75 µm. The rib ring and the bus waveguides are separated by a gap of 100 nm. The modulator has three doping levels with concentrations of 1018, 1019, and 1020 cm-3 for the core, slab, and the contact areas, respectively. The device is fabricated using the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics) Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) service. It is tested with a tunable light source that has wavelengths ranging from 1485 nm to 1590 nm. The light is coupled to the modulator using grating couplers. The measured free spectral range of the ring resonator is about 13 nm. The fabricated ring modulator exhibits a large extinction ratio of 21 dB and a high modulation efficiency of 3.7 nm at a direct current (DC) voltage of 1.5 V.