Silicon photonics is THE process technology driving today’s rapid innovation in optical fiber communication, automotive LiDAR, computing, and bio-sensing applications. It enables more data to be transferred or processed in a shorter time and for a longer distance than via traditional Aluminum or Copper interconnects between ICs. The PH18 (200mm) and TPS45PHD (300mm) silicon photonics foundry offerings from Tower Semiconductor are designed to address the growing demand for the o-band and c-band data center interconnect market along with sensing and LiDAR applications. The platform features include:

• Low-loss silicon waveguides
• Multi-layer Silicon nitride waveguides in custom variant with best in industry propagation loss 
• High-speed Germanium PIN diodes and avalanche photodiodes with optoelectronic bandwidths in excess of 70GHz
• PIN-diode based phase shifters and MZMs with electro-optic bandwidths exceeding 55GHz
• Efficient on-chip heater elements
• Low loss edge coupling with standard CMOS-compatible Al or Cu backend
• Options for laser attach with UBM
• On-chip Integrated InP laser and EAM options with demonstrated 200GBs / channel operation
• Stable, high-volume production line
• 300mm/45nm option for best-in-class waveguide loss and 3 levels of nitride waveguide layers
• Optical testing capability
• MPW and fast-turn short-loop runs
• Roadmap highlights include Integrated Thin Film LiNbO3 – based MZMs targeting >100GBaud applications and Avalanche PDs with >10dB optical gain and BW>20GHz for LiDAR, other low-light sensing 

Key to enabling the PH18 process for our customers has been Tower’s ability to leverage the tight interaction between design automation, models, and process technology that has helped our customers to maximize performance and minimize cost as well as time to market. We’ve brought our decade’s long experience with building design platforms in electronics to photonics by partnering with Synopsys’ Photonic IC Solutions team and leveraging their own decades worth of experience in enabling designing and manufacturing of photonic devices, circuits, and systems. Synopsys OptoCompiler design platform supports Tower’s silicon photonics PDKs with a rich library of silicon photonic building blocks such as waveguides, directional and grating couplers, MMIs, tapers, Ge photo detectors, and modulators, enabling:

• Schematic capture and simulation with Synopsys OptSim in conjunction with industry standard electronic simulators, enabling electro-optic co-simulation and analysis
• Seamless schematic driven layout synthesis with back-annotation for post layout simulations
• Photonic aware LVS and DRC verification with Synopsys IC Validator  
• Support for custom device design with Synopsys Photonic Device Compiler