PhotonixFAB Partners X-FAB and Smart Photonics Deepen Collaboration

X-FAB Silicon Foundries SE, an analog/mixed-signal and specialty foundry, and SMART Photonics, an indium phosphide (InP) integrated photonics foundry, have partnered to integrate X-FAB’s silicon photonics platform with SMART Photonics’ InP chiplets by using micro-transfer printing (MTP) for heterogeneous integration. The collaborators expect the combination to enable new capabilities for datacom and telecom applications.

InP technology supports modulator bandwidths exceeding 120 GHz, making it suitable for next-generation multi-terabit telecom and datacom standards. In contrast, commercially available silicon photonics technologies hit a performance ceiling at around 70 GHz. The newly formed collaboration aims to deliver scalable, high-volume solutions that combine the best of both InP and silicon photonics technologies.

Rudi De Winter, CEO of X-FAB (left) and Johan Feenstra, CEO of SMART Photonics. Courtesy of X-FAB.

The companies specifically expect the combination to enable improved system performance while reducing integration costs through relaxed photonics packaging requirements. The MTP technology, licensed from X-Celeprint, enables a broad degree of freedom for the system and product designers, by providing flexible integration of various material system chiplets into the product design, X-FAB said.

This collaboration builds on the PhotonixFAB EU funding project, which aims to provide a path to scalable high-volume manufacturing for silicon-on-insulator and silicon nitride silicon photonics, MTP-ready InP chiplets, and microtransfer printing of chiplets. X-FAB heads the public/private PhotonixFAB consortium, of which SMART Photonics is a partner.

The companies anticipate industrial prototyping by 2026, with risk production readiness by 2027. Early customer engagements, they said, can be supported within the ongoing PhotonixFAB project framework.