First Domestic Photonic Chip Pilot Line Officially Launched in Wuxi
TapTechNews September 26th news, according to the news from the Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. On September 25th, at the 2024 Integrated Circuit (Wuxi) Innovation and Development Conference, the first domestic photonic chip pilot line built by the Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University was officially launched.
The Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University introduced that the photonic chip is the core of the new generation of information technology and can meet the technical needs of transmission, computing, storage, and display in the fields of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and biomedicine in the new round of scientific and technological revolution. However, the domestic photonic chip industry has long faced common difficulties such as the absence of a pilot platform, high technical barriers in the process, low yield verification, insufficient production capacity conversion, and long tape-out cycle of foreign platforms, which seriously restricts the golden period of the transformation and landing of innovative achievements. Therefore, the Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University took the lead in laying out the first domestic high-end photonic chip pilot line in Wuxi.
The total area of the pilot platform is 17,000 square feet (about 1579.35 square meters), integrating scientific research, production, and services, and is equipped with more than 100 internationally top CMOS process equipment, covering the full closed-loop process from lithography, thin film deposition, etching, wet process, cutting, measurement to packaging of thin film lithium niobate photonic chips.
This platform also takes into account other material systems such as silicon and silicon nitride, builds N characteristic process platforms, and combines the research and development pilot + technical service operation model, which can not only provide the whole process technical services for universities, research institutes, and innovative enterprises, but also incubate projects for the photonic industry.
TapTechNews learned from public information that the Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CHIPX) was officially established in December 2021 under the framework of deepening comprehensive cooperation between Wuxi City and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The research institute is jointly participated in and constructed by the Binhu District People's Government of Wuxi City, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Liyuan Economic Development Zone.
In 2021, the Binhu District of Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province introduced the team of Jin Xianmin from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and established the Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University; in December 2022, the pilot line officially started construction, in October 2023, the carrier was capped, and in January 2024, the first batch of equipment entered. After equipment debugging, it was officially launched until September.
The Wuxi Photonic Chip Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University disclosed that in the next stage, based on 6/8-inch thin film lithium niobate wafers , with thin film lithium niobate modulators as the core, overcome the engineering technical problems faced by the industrialization of thin film lithium niobate photonic chips, develop a wafer-level chip mass production process, and achieve mass production of thin film lithium niobate photonic chips to meet the large computing power needs such as the development of artificial intelligence.