The design and fabrication of demultiplexer filters at AEPONYX required advanced testing methods that couldn't be done manually. Prior to purchasing their own Maple Leaf Photonics system, AEPONYX had been using their partner university's MLP photonic probe systems. As their fabrication runs grew larger and more frequent, they realized the throughput and turnaround time for testing was the greatest bottleneck in their iterative design process. With previous exposure to the MLP system and evolving testing needs, AEPONYX decided to purchase their own MLP probe system.

Maple Leaf Photonics provided AEPONYX with a system optimized for testing the demultiplexer filters given the stage of development they were in. After installing their own system, AEPONYX was able to focus on the data analysis. To handle the amount of data they were receiving from the continual operation and automated testing of several hundred devices on the chip, AEPONYX quickly automated their data analysis. “The throughput and the turnaround time MLP provides by having quick access to data really speeds up the learning process of the team--both the designer part of the team and the tester part of the team,” Dr. Coia affirmed.

With the increased throughput, repeatability, and reliability, AEPONYX has been able to understand the bias between design and the fab that you can't see in simulations. Being able to account for this in designs has sped up their ability to fine tune their designs and reach production level faster.

Dr. Coia expressed that the transition to using their own MLP system exceeded their expectations in many ways, but “the best asset we had from MLP was their collaboration. The technological knowledge that they come up with, they have been very supportive all along in the process, and that was key to get the setup to where it is.” Dr. Coia added that "as a startup, we appreciated the relatively low cost and the hands-on support from Maple Leaf Photonics to help us automate our testing." 

Dr. Coia also reports that the MLP setup has been crucial in the development of the demultiplexer filter and is "at the center of our iterative design process. It’s being used almost on a 24-hour basis. Every day there is a sample running on the MLP setup.” Built-in functionality for efficiently and reliably finding first light proved to be at the center of the MLP system’s ability to automatically measure many devices in succession without human intervention. This produced much more comprehensive data sets that invited development of innovative automated data analysis tools for processing and interpretation. “We've been able to sample comprehensive DOEs with hundreds of instances on each chip to be able to match our design with the fab," explained Dr. Coia, "to that regard the MLP setup is a work horse." The impact is a robust statistical process control environment for design optimization and foundry quality management.

Summarizing the AEPONYX experience with Maple Leaf Photonics, Dr. Coia said he “couldn’t imagine doing this kind of assessment without having a semi-automated tool like the MLP setup.”

PiC Testing Needs: Repeatability and Reliability of Data

Dr. Preble’s research in quantum integrated photonics often requires multi-channel electrical controls and biasing that work in concert with optical test equipment. Prior to acquiring a Maple Leaf Photonics probe station, characterizing integrated photonic circuits required the manual alignment of probes and fibers, significantly impacting repeatability and reliability of the acquired data. The test and measurement process proved to be a costly bottleneck in advancing his research. Dr. Preble explored many commercially available probe stations and decided to purchase a customized probe station from Maple Leaf Photonics.

MLP Probe Station Facilitates International Engineering Competition

In collaboration with AIM Photonics, Dr. Preble teaches an EdX course to students and engineers from around the world. There is “a huge demand for this course content,” Dr. Preble notes, and teaches students how to design & tapeout an electro-optic PiC  that can be submitted directly to the AIM Photonics 300mm wafer foundry.

Dr. Preble expects hundreds of people will travel to RIT to participate in workshops that include hands-on characterization of PIC circuits using the Maple Leaf Photonics system. Dr. Preble looks forward to leveraging MLP’s latest software capabilities, such as its API and Python interface, to further customize the probe system and test environment. He foresees multiple probe stations in his lab, each optimized for different needs, such as automated fiber-chip-fiber applications.

“The solutions Maple Leaf Photonics provide meet our needs at a price we cannot get anywhere else.”

Dr. Alvaro Casas Bedoya, The University of Sydney

Dr. Alvaro Casas Bedoya leads photonic nano-fabrication and novel research projects in the Eggleton Research Group at The University  of Sydney, Australia. The group pushes the limits of ultrafast, ultrabroadband signal processing for RF photonic applications. Dr. Casas Bedoya's most recent achievements involve the demonstration of nonlinear phase shifters based on Brillouin-scattered waveguides. Such novel RF phase shifters are particularly important for beam steering in phased array antennas in many applications such as satellite communications, RADAR, medical imaging, 5G networks, and sensing.