Advantest has readied silicon photonics test capability for volume production, with the company’s test chief naming five foundries running 300mm photonics lines.
Dr Clemens Leichtle, who leads the V93000 photonics business, identified TSMC, Tower, GlobalFoundries, STMicroelectronics and Samsung as the fabs with 300mm silicon photonics capacity. His message at the company’s SEMICON West showcase was that optical chips have moved past the promise stage.
The testing problem is structural. On a photonic IC wafer, electrical contacts and optical input and output sit on the same side, so a single probe pass can reach both. Once an electronic die is stacked on top, the optical ports are buried and the test sequence has to change.
That means different requirements at each insertion point, from wafer sort through final package test. Advantest is pitching its platform as able to handle the full sequence rather than forcing fabs to buy separate optical and electrical test cells.
Production-line test economics have been one of the quiet drags on photonics adoption. Getting metrology and test into volume tools is the last step before optical interconnect becomes routine rather than special.
