Aimed at reducing the barriers for access to, and market take-up of silicon photonics technology by focusing on reduced cost, risk and design effort, education, and roadmapping, Belgium-based nanoelectronics and nanotechnology research centre IMEC and Grenoble, France-based applied research center CEA-LETI announced that they have launched ePIXfab, the continuation of their multi-project wafer silicon photonics prototyping service started in 2006.

Silicon photonics IC technology is meant to allow versatile and highly functional ICs that handle light information, and are used in applications such as communication networks, sensors, monitoring and bio-analysis. The use of silicon allows functionality of a photonic chip to be increased by several orders of magnitude and by manufacturing with CMOS technology; the chips are reliable and can be used in volume applications.

Co-funded by the European Union through the Seventh Framework Program and coordinated by IMEC, ePIXfab offers a cost-effective way for researchers and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to prototype photonic ICs in silicon by organizing shuttle (also called multi project wafer) fabrication runs with IMEC and LETI wafer-scale technologies, including 193nm deep-UV lithography-based processes.

IMEC and LETI agreed to extend this service to allow a broader market take-up of silicon photonic IC technology with the dedicated prototyping and small-volume manufacturing possible based on IMEC or LETI technology.

Beginning in September, the PhotonFAB project will provide the ePIXfab service with a more extensive technology portfolio, new design libraries, education and training for the clients, a shuttle service roadmap and a more streamlined operation, IMEC said.

Funded by the European Union as a FP7 Support Action, PhotonFAB aims to lower the design effort, risk and bare costs for the clients. Clients from countries fully associated to the FP7 program will be able to obtain additional cost reductions for the shuttle service and training activities.

Since 2006, due to the collaboration between IMEC and CEA-LETI, more than 25 academic and SME groups have performed R&D on their IC technology in a fabless way with reduced costs, by joining many IC designs in a single fabrication run.

ePIXfab is set to hold two information sessions for its fabrication service and on the PhotonFAB project: one at the IEEE Group IV Photonics conference, September 17-19 in Sorrento, Italy, and a second one at the European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communication 2008 (ECOC), September 21-25 in Brussels, Belgium.