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We give an overview the progress of our work in silicon photonic programmable circuits, covering the techn stack from the photonic chip over the driver electronics, packaging technologies all the way to the sof layers. On the photonic side, we show our recent results in large-scale silicon photonic circuits with diff tuning technologies, including heaters, MEMS and liquid crystals, and their respective electronic driving sch We look into the scaling potential of these different technologies as the number of tunable elements in a ci increases. Finally, we elaborate on the software routines for routing and filter synthesis to enable the pho programmer., Part of ISBN 9781510659575QC 20231023

The demand for efficient actuators in photonics has peaked with increasing popularity for large-scale general-purpose programmable photonics circuits. We present our work to enhance an established silicon photonics platform with low-power micro-electromechanical (MEMS) and liquid crystal (LC) actuators to enable large-scale programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs)., Part of ISBN 9781510659810QC 20230801

The emerging fields of silicon (Si) photonic micro–electromechanical systems (MEMS) and optomechanics enable a wide range of novel high-performance photonic devices with ultra-low power consumption, such as integrated optical MEMS phase shifters, tunable couplers, switches, and optomechanical resonators. In contrast to conventional SiO2-clad Si photonics, photonic MEMS and optomechanics have suspended and movable parts that need to be protected from environmental influence and contamination during operation. Wafer-level hermetic sealing can be a cost-efficient solution, but Si photonic MEMS that are hermetically sealed inside cavities with optical and electrical feedthroughs have not been demonstrated to date, to our knowledge. Here, we demonstrate wafer-level vacuum sealing of Si photonic MEMS inside cavities with ultra-thin caps featuring optical and electrical feedthroughs that connect the photonic MEMS on the inside to optical grating couplers and electrical bond pads on the outside. We used Si photonic MEMS devices built on foundry wafers from the iSiPP50G Si photonics platform of IMEC, Belgium. Vacuum confinement inside the sealed cavities was confirmed by an observed increase of the cutoff frequency of the electro-mechanical response of the encapsulated photonic MEMS phase shifters, due to reduction of air damping. The sealing caps are extremely thin, have a small footprint, and are compatible with subsequent flip-chip bonding onto interposers or printed circuit boards. Thus, our approach for sealing of integrated Si photonic MEMS clears a significant hurdle for their application in high-performance Si photonic circuits., QC 20220303, MORPHIC, AEOLUS, ULISSES, ZeroAMP

The field of silicon (Si) photonic micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) for photonic integrated circuits (PICs) has evolved rapidly. Thanks to the ultra-low power consumption of Si photonic MEMS, it enables a wide range of high-performance photonic devices such as integrated optical MEMS phase shifters, tunable couplers and switches. However, photonic MEMS have suspended and movable parts which need to be protected from environmental influences, such as exposure to dust and humidity. Therefore, a packaging solution is needed for reliable operation over long periods. Here, we demonstrate wafer-level vacuum sealing of Si photonic MEMS inside cavities with ultra-thin Si caps., QC 20221214, MORPHIC (EU, H2020), ZeroAMP (EU, H2020), ULISSES (EU, H2020), AEOLUS (EU, H2020)

We present our work in the European project MORPHIC to extend an established silicon photonics platform with low-power and non-volatile micro-electromechanical (MEMS) actuators to demonstrate large-scale programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs)., Part of proceedings: ISBN 978-1-5106-5173-9; 978-1-5106-5172-2, QC 20220906

We present our work to extend silicon photonics with MEMS actuators to enable low-power, large scale programmable photonic circuits. For this, we start from the existing iSiPP50G silicon photonics platform of IMEC, where we add free-standing movable waveguides using a few post-processing steps. This allows us to implement phase shifters and tunable couplers using electrostatically actuated MEMS, while at the same time maintaining all the original functionality of the silicon photonics platform. The MEMS devices are protected using a wafer-level sealing approach and interfaced with custom multi-channel driver and readout electronics., Part of proceedings: ISBN 978-1-5106-4881-4QC 20220818

Programmable photonic chips allow flexible reconfiguration of on-chip optical connections, controlled through electronics and software. We will present the recent progress of such complex photonic circuits powered by silicon photonic MEMS actuators., Part of ISBN 9781557528209QC 20230801

Silicon (Si) photonic micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), with its low-power phase shifters and tunable couplers, is emerging as a promising technology for large-scale reconfigurable photonics with potential applications for example in photonic accelerators for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. For silicon photonic MEMS devices, hermetic/vacuum packaging is crucial to the performance and longevity, and to protect the photonic devices from contamination. Here, we demonstrate a wafer-level vacuum packaging approach to hermetically seal Si photonic MEMS wafers produced in the iSiPP50G Si photonics foundry platform of IMEC. The packaging approach consists of transfer bonding and sealing the silicon photonic MEMS devices with 30 µm-thick Si caps, which were prefabricated on a 100 mm-diameter silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. The packaging process achieved successful wafer-scale vacuum sealing of various photonic devices. The functionality of photonic MEMS after the hermetic/vacuum packaging was confirmed. Thus, the demonstrated thin Si cap packaging shows the possibility of a novel vacuum sealing method for MEMS integrated in standard Si photonics platforms., QC 20210710, MORPHiC, ZeroAMP, ULISSES

In the European project MORPHIC we develop a platform for programmable silicon photonic circuits enabled by waveguide-integrated micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). MEMS can add compact, and low-power phase shifters and couplers to an established silicon photonics platform with high-speed modulators and detectors. This MEMS technology is used for a new class of programmable photonic circuits, that can be reconfigured using electronics and software, consisting of large interconnected meshes of phase shifters and couplers. MORPHIC is also developing the packaging and driver electronics interfacing schemes for such large circuits, creating a supply chain for rapid prototyping new photonic chip concepts. These will be demonstrated in different applications, such as switching, beamforming and microwave photonics., QC 20200527

With the maturing and the increasing complexity of Silicon Photonics technology, novel avenues are pursued to reduce power consumption and to provide enhanced functionality: exploiting mechanical movement in advanced Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuits provides a promising path to access a strong modulation of the effective index and to low power consumption by employing mechanically stable and thus non-volatile states. In this paper, we will discuss recent achievements in the development of MEMS enabled systems in Silicon Photonics and outline the roadmap towards reconfigurable general Photonic Integrated Circuits., QC 20200313