From Wafer to Optical Interconnect: Enabling Scalable Silicon Photonics Manufacturing Through Test, Assembly and Fiber Preparation Technologies
The rapid adoption of AI infrastructure, High Performance Computing (HPC), and cloud-scale architectures is accelerating the transition toward Silicon Photonics interconnect solutions, including Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) and Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO). While device innovation continues at an extraordinary pace, one of the industry’s key challenges remains the industrialization of high-volume photonics manufacturing with the required levels of precision, reliability, throughput, and cost efficiency.
This presentation will provide a technology-focused overview of the three core manufacturing pillars enabling scalable Silicon Photonics production.
The first section will address advanced test platforms for CPO and LPO architectures, including wafer-level, die-level, and module-level testing. Focus will be placed on the growing complexity of validating high-density optical and electrical interfaces at production scale, where automation, parallelization, calibration, alignment accuracy, and data integrity are critical to enabling high-volume manufacturing and reducing time-to-market.
The second section will focus on automated assembly technologies, including active alignment, precision robotics, machine vision, process control, thermal management, and throughput optimization for next-generation photonics packaging.
The final section will address fiber preparation technologies and their increasingly critical role in scalable optical manufacturing, including fiber array preparation, polishing, laser processing, automation strategies, yield optimization, and integration into fully automated production lines.
Key Technologies Covered
- Wafer-level double-sided electro-optical test (for COUPE and reconstituted wafers)
- Automated in-situ optical calibration
- Warped wafer profiling to enhance electrical contact reliability
- Singulated chip electro-optical characterization and validation
- Modular CPO and pluggable LPO fully automated test in HVM
- Automated in-situ fiber end-face inspection and cleaning for HVM test
- Embedded high-speed parallel optical and electrical testing
- Precision optical coupling and alignment at wafer, die, and module level
- Machine learning to optimize mechanical alignment times increasing efficiency
- High volume fiber array preparation and laser processing
