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it house reported on october 6 that according to hubei jiufengshan laboratory, in september 2024, the jiufengshan laboratory successfully lit up the laser light source integrated into the silicon-based chip.this is also the first time this technology has been successfully implemented in china., jiufengshan laboratory once again achieved a milestone breakthrough in the field of silicon photonics integration.

this achievement uses jiufengshan laboratory's self-developed heterogeneous integration technology. after a complex process, the process integration of the indium phosphide laser was completed inside the 8-inch soi wafer.

jiufengshan laboratory introduced:

this technology is known in the industry as"chip shines", which uses optical signals with better transmission performance to replace electrical signals for transmission. it is an important means to subvert signal data transmission between chips. the core purpose is to solve the problem that the current electrical signals between chips are close to the physical limit. it will play an innovative role in promoting data centers, computing power centers, cpu/gpu chips, ai chips and other fields.

▲ video of the light output of the on-chip light source chip under a microscope

on-chip optical interconnection based on silicon-based optoelectronics integration is considered an ideal solution to break through the bottlenecks such as power consumption, bandwidth and delay faced by the development of integrated circuit technology in the post-moore era.. the industry's current most difficult challenge in the development of fully integrated silicon photonic platforms lies in the development and integration of light sources on silicon substrates that can emit light with high efficiency, the "heart" of silicon photonic chips. this technology is one of the few remaining blank links in my country's optoelectronics field internationally.

the silicon photonics process team of jiufengshan laboratory collaborates with partners to tackle key problems.hetero-bonding iii-v laser material epitaxial grains on an 8-inch silicon photonic wafer, and then performing a cmos-compatible on-chip device manufacturing process.it has successfully solved the difficulties of iii-v material structure design and growth, low bonding yield of materials and wafers, and on-wafer patterning and etching control of heterogeneous integrated wafers.after nearly ten years of pursuit and research, we finally succeeded in lighting up the on-chip laser and achieving "chip light emission."。

▲ jiufengshan laboratory’s 8-inch light source chip wafer on silicon substrate

compared with traditional discrete packaged external light sources and fc micro-assembly light sources, jiufengshan laboratory's on-chip light source technology can effectively solve the process problems of traditional silicon photonic chips with insufficient coupling efficiency, long alignment adjustment time, and insufficient alignment accuracy. it breaks through mass production bottlenecks such as high production costs, large size, and difficulty in large-scale integration.

▲ jiufengshan laboratory’s 8-inch light source chip wafer on silicon substrate

it house inquired about public information and learned that in march 2023, hubei jiufengshan laboratory, which focuses on compound semiconductor r&d and innovation, was officially put into operation. after one year of operation, jiufengshan laboratory has put the 8-inch pilot line into operation, the first batch of wafers (high-precision gratings) successfully rolled off the production line, and the world's first 8-inch silicon photonic thin film lithium niobate optoelectronic integrated wafer rolled off the production line.