OpenLight Partners with VLC Photonics to Expand Design and Test Capacity
OpenLight, in custom PASIC chip design and manufacturing, today announced a strategic partnership with VLC Photonics, an end-to-end integrated photonics services firm, part of the Hitachi group. With this collaboration, VLC Photonics will now offer design and test services using the OpenLight process design kit (PDK). The expansion of design services increases the number of designs that OpenLight can support at any one time on the Tower Semiconductor PH18DA process, reducing time to market for the development of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and expanding the silicon photonics industry’s reach to drive advancements across multiple applications and market segments.
“By integrating industry-leading expertise and resources from OpenLight with best-in-class design and test services offered by VLC Photonics, we are empowering our customers to tackle unique development challenges, broaden their design repertoire, and overcome compatibility hurdles,” said Dr. Adam Carter, CEO of OpenLight. “This is an exciting step forward for our company as we continue to scale and attract more customers through this year.”
The OpenLight PDK integrates active and passive components, offering advanced access to silicon photonics with heterogeneous integration. VLC Photonics will now support a growing customer base using the Synopsys OptoCompiler implementation of the PDK. This provides mutual customers with a leading option from an EDA tool perspective, ensuring successful design implementation and verification on the first attempt. On the test side, VLC Photonics will support OpenLight customers with its capabilities on fully automated vertical and edge-coupling die and wafer level characterization, as well as high-speed testing up to 110 GHz. This is critical for photonic integrated circuits used in high bandwidth applications such as those required in the datacenter and AI/ML markets.
“Aiming to provide access to best-in-class platforms to our customers, this partnership will also be fundamental in expanding our vision with Hitachi for maturing and growing the integrated photonics industry, especially in the emerging area of hybrid integration,” said Iñigo Artundo, CEO of VLC Photonics. “After supporting PIC customers for over 12 years, we know that speeding the development cycle and lowering the risks when facing a tape-out are key, as well as being able to later on perform the PIC characterization in a reliable and scalable way. We are excited to work with OpenLight now to provide solutions to all these challenges.”
