Ligentec, a provider of manufacturing foundry services in silicon nitride, and VLC Photonics, a design house for photonic circuits, have collaborated to offer a generic open access platform for the prototyping and fabrication of photonic integrated circuits (PIC).
While the platform targets the most common communication wavelengths, it can also be customised to address the lower visible wavelengths, suitable for biophotonic and sensing applications. The main markets addressed by the platform are optical telecom and datacom, supercontinuum generation, microwave photonics and quantum optics.
Fabrication through the platform is organised into dedicated full-wafer runs or shared multi-project wafer runs, which are periodically scheduled three times a year. Users can subscribe to these runs and prepare their designs using the standardised rules and functional building blocks provided by Ligentec and VLC Photonics, which have also been implemented under a process design kit for two different design software tools, OptoDesigner by PhoeniX Software and IPKISS by Luceda Photonics.
VLC Photonics will also be offering full design support for inexperienced users, in addition to chip characterisation and test services after fabrication is complete.