Combined design and foundry services expected to accelerate new industry entrants

Singapore, 27 February 2019 – CompoundTek, a global foundry services leader in emerging silicon photonic solutions has partnered with the Silicon Photonics Group at the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), to offer silicon photonics design services.

The Silicon Photonics Group was founded by Professor Graham Reed to support UK silicon photonics research and spans than 25 years. The Group has developed designs which has since become the industry standard in data centres, telecoms, and high-performance computing applications.

This unique industry partnership aims to accelerate the adoption of silicon photonics technology, a key enabler to transporting high levels of data, instrumental in enhancing operational efficiency and capacity within data centres. Silicon photonics technology is also paving the way for emerging applications such as data transfer, autonomous vehicles, telecoms, biomedical and artificial intelligence.

Read full press release here: https://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/news-and-press/exhibitor-press-releases/compoundtek-partners-with-southampton-silicon-phot/

Photonics design automation accelerates prototyping silicon photonic integrated circuit designs with CompoundTek’s foundry services 

Singapore, 13 February 2019 – CompoundTek, a global foundry services leader in emerging silicon photonic (SiPh) solutions announces the availability of an enhanced Process Design Kit (PDK) developed in collaboration with leading photonic simulation software provider, Lumerical. In combining Lumerical’s photonics design automation for accelerated PIC design prototyping, with CompoundTek’s proprietary foundry services, the SiPh PDK strengthens CompoundTek’s efforts in driving customers’ process efficiencies by accelerating their time-to-market.

This enhanced SiPh PDK will be offered through the implementation of a reliable compact model library (CML), which includes active and passive devices such as optical waveguide devices, fiber-to-waveguide couplers, high speed waveguide Ge photo-detectors and high-speed modulator. It allows SiPh designers to leverage pre-developed blocks to design and verify their photonics products more quickly and efficiently before fabricating physical prototypes. These predictive capabilities enable photonics designers to validate designs prior to manufacturing.

Read full press release here: https://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/news-and-press/exhibitor-press-releases/compoundtek-to-launch-partnership-with-lumerical-a/

In combining foundry expertise with leading industry research, the firm aims to drive adoption of emerging niche technologies for Industry 4.0, IoT

Singapore, 1 February 2019 – CompoundTek, a global technology provider in silicon photonics (SiPh) foundry services looks to showcase its expanded services portfolio, designed to connect intellectual property to commercialisation capabilities that delivers enhanced margins over reduced timeframes and accelerate time-to-market. To be featured at the upcoming Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition 2019 (OFC 2019) in San Diego, USA, the development of these niche semiconductor technologies is timely as high-value manufacturing gathers momentum in Southeast Asia.

Spurred largely by demands in Industry 4.0 and Internet-of-Things (IoT), the portfolio combines foundry expertise with leading industry research, offering solutions developed as part of CompoundTek’s unique “hybrid business model”. This approach provides customers total fab/foundry solutions alongside targeted product capabilities, positioning the firm amongst the few elites globally with end-to-end SiPh industry expertise. Offering cost optimisation through high volume manufacturing, ensuring high yield while bringing to the forefront innovative fabrication solutions, CompoundTek has its sights on driving the adoption of SiPh in various high-growth industries.

With applications spanning data centre, telecommunication, artificial intelligence, bio-medical diagnostics, automotive/electric vehicles, lidar, smart sensor and quantum computing, the company looks to leverage the robust high-value manufacturing sector in Southeast Asia, where its operation is based.

Read full press release here: https://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/news-and-press/exhibitor-press-releases/compoundtek-accelerates-commercialisation-capabili/

Booth No: 6105, San Diego Convention Center

Date: 05-07 March 2019

CompoundTek, a global market leader in silicon photonics foundry services provider will be exhibiting at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition 2019 (OFC 2019), an international industry event that connects over 15,500 attendees representing all sectors of the market including data center end users and service providers and carriers, to systems and component vendors.

At this year’s event, CompoundTek looks to exhibit its expanding range of solutions and services designed for the growing silicon photonics market. Making headlines in 2018 at the company’s first exhibit, CompoundTek garnered attention for its cutting-edge capabilities in silicon photonics fabrication with a fast turn-around time that addresses both the issues of capacity and process technology gaps in the industry.

Backed by technological strength that is comparable and at some points, superior to research institutes and other commercial foundries, CompoundTek aims to offer the best and the latest technologies in silicon photonics fabrication for telecommunication, data center, bio-medical diagnostics, smart sensor, artificial intelligence, quantum optical computing, and automotive applications.

For over 40 years, the OFC, has drawn attendees from all corners of the globe to meet and greet, teach and learn, and make connections, in what is today billed as the largest global conference and exhibition for optical communications and networking professionals.

Join us at Booth #6105, San Diego Convention Center and chat with our experts about your product fabrication needs and exciting partnership opportunities. We look forward to sharing our unconventional solutions and innovations with you and your team.

To book an appointment or to register your interest for more information on CompoundTek’s  exhibition, please contact:

Victor Tan

Sales Director

65 6515 0170

tanvictor@compoundtek.com

CompoundTek is proud to deliver innovative semiconductor solutions built in partnership. So it was with great honour that we recently welcomed our valued Japanese partners to our head office in Singapore.

In this established collaboration alongside a major Japanese conglomerate, CompoundTek has been unable to unlock wider access to its innovative silicon photonics technology in the Japanese market. The most recent meeting between our organisations offered the forum to discuss and design strategy for our latest customer – a leading Japanese automotive manufacturer looking to embrace the opportunity provided by silicon photonics technology.

The design of the Japanese automotive giant’s latest vehicle model was completed in October 2018, with fabrication of CompoundTek’s silicon photonics technology underway thanks to our strategic wafer fabrication partner SilTerra. The delivery on this collaboration enables the Japanese automotive giant to leverage CompoundTek’s leading technology and processes to enable the next generation of automotive products.

The team Lead of the Japanese delegation remarked on the opportunity this technology can unlock in collaboration. “Success in delivering innovative new applications of silicon photonics propels CompoundTek, and its partners, to the forefront of industry. This means that success is built on the basis of strong technical and operational efficiency, a virtue reliably demonstrated and delivered by CompoundTek. We’re proud to build foundation for a long-lasting and beneficial mutual collaboration.”

Thanks to the valued relationship between CompoundTek and our Japanese conglomerate partner, we’re helping deliver the next generation of vehicles for an iconic automotive customer, as mass production prepares to hit the roads with targeted product launch in 2025.

CompoundTek continues to forge forward in their thrust to be a top silicon photonics foundry service provider in the world!

CompoundTek has gained significant customer traction since joining the OFC18 conference in March this year.  CompoundTek is now servicing twelve commercial customers, of which five are multi-billion entities. These customers span across various market segments and applications from data centers, telecommunications, interconnectivity, quantum computing to artificial intelligence, biomedical and automotive. Some has signed business agreements with CompoundTek towards mass production in the second half of 2019 to 2020.  

On top of that, another seventeen other commercial customers and eighteen universities and research institutes around the world are in various stages of discussion towards either their first MPW or full-reticle runs with CompoundTek.

CompoundTek’s success in customer traction shows that the silicon photonics market is picking up speed. “The interest has grown beyond silicon photonics transceivers.  Customers feedback that they choose CompoundTek as their foundry services partner because of cost effective MPW/prototyping , fast development  and turnaround time. More than that, I believe it’s because we always strive to give best-in-class customer service and response,” said Paul Chia, Head of Business Development in CompoundTek.

CompoundTek provides the critical 2-in-1 services where both technology development & mass production capabilities are done within the same world class fab facility.  This improves cycle-time and enables seamless progression from development to mass production.  “This is possible because we generate the IPs and knowhow ourselves and we have a remarkably close cooperation with our strategic partner, SilTerra. And we position ourselves to give no additional cost for standard licensing of IPs during mass production. This is a model that I think is attractive to most customers. Additionally, our vast experience in being pioneers in the fab business, transforming fabs to achieve their full potential, and knowing customers’ needs and wants has helped brought us to this stage in successfully assisting Silicon Photonics product companies bring their designs to reality. We are excited to be at the forefront of this technological revolution and we will continue to give our best to provide the most advanced Silicon Photonics fab platform,” said Raj Kumar, CEO and Chairman of CompoundTek.

CompoundTek is silicon photonics-centric and is committed to continuously improve technology offerings and services to be the best-in-class silicon photonics foundry partner for customers. CompoundTek has an on-going research collaboration with Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU’s) School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering with a Nano-Fabrication Centre in Singapore and strategic partnerships with numerous other global Silicon Photonics entities.

About CompoundTek Pte Ltd

CompoundTek possesses the technological capabilities to provide silicon photonics enhanced foundry services to support customers with best-in-class proprietary manufacturing processes and services to convert their designs from prototyping to mass production.  With a world-class 200mm commercial silicon CMOS foundry partner, CompoundTek supports fast turn-around full-reticle field, Multi Project Wafers (MPW) runs and high-volume mass production requirements. Additional Silicon Photonics services are provided for Customers that might require them including SiPh employee training for new hires and specific SiPh Design Service Support. For more information, please visit www.compoundtek.com.

Belgium, Sep 19, 2018 – The EPIC World Technology Summit held on 30-31-August 2018 was attended by about 110 participants from 22 countries. The purpose of this trailblazing meeting was to bring experts and leaders from industrial companies around the world to discuss photonics technology developments and challenges. EPIC’s members encompass the entire value chain from LED lighting, photovoltaic solar energy, photonics integrated circuits, optical components, lasers, sensors, imaging, displays, projectors, optic fiber, and other photonic related technologies. In addition, a fast-growing sector in the industry association is silicon photonics where CompoundTek plays a significant role.

CompoundTek is the only commercial silicon photonics fab member in the organisation which can support over 5,000 wafers per month and able to assist porting from other fabs for mass production. CompoundTek offers a complete PDK and building blocks in silicon photonics, an MPW and full reticule with quick turn-around time and a value-added service such as silicon photonics design support through its partners. This silicon design support would enable companies to join the race in silicon photonics.

Since its founding in January 2017, CompoundTek has 12 global commercial customers in various silicon photonics applications in the fields of telecom, datacom, bio-medical, automotive, artificial intelligence, and most recently, quantum computing. Rajkumar, the founder and CEO of CompoundTek, has over 25 years of experience in silicon CMOS foundry as a business unit head.  He was also a General Manager of a $1.2B business unit with profit and loss responsibilities where he managed over 7,000 people and six world-class fabs. He also led technology migrations from 6” to 8” and 8” to 12” and was instrumental in the first successful conversion of IDM fab into a foundry fab.

In the summit, Rajkumar shared his perspectives about a pressing question in the minds of the participants, “Is Silicon Photonics a Mainstream CMOS Foundry Offering?”

Full house during Raj Kumar’s presentation

After the summit, Dr. Jose Pozo, Director of Technology and Innovation of EPIC has this to say about the presentation, “In my personal opinion, the presentation by Raj Kumar, depicting the business case for CMOS Foundries manufacturing Silicon Photonics, was the highlight of the event.”

Simon Schwinger, CEO and Managing Director of Lighting & Electronics Jena, a supplier in professional lighting and power electronics, wrote in his comment in CompoundTek’s LinkedIn page, “Interesting take-aways.”

CompoundTek is committed to the association and will continue to contribute to the resolution of difficult challenges in its capacity and nurturing partnerships with members.

Singapore, Sep 05, 2018 – Nanyang Technological University (NTU) continues to invest and enlarge its global silicon photonics (SiPh) collaborations by recently signing a Research Collaboration Agreement (RCA) on Silicon Photonics with CompoundTek Pte Ltd, to further enhance the industry’s commercialised Si-photonics fab process targeting O-band and C-band optical communication as well as sensors.

 “There has been a data traffic demand explosion mainly due to the mobile internet. As such, there is tremendous pressure on the design of next generation telecom equipment with increased flexibility, processing capacity and bandwidth density. At the same time, the solution must be delivered at a lower cost, reduced power consumption, and smaller size,” said Paul Chia, Head of Sales and Marketing at CompoundTek.

“We believe that silicon photonics is the solution to optical devices that can deliver much higher data throughput at a lower cost.  CompoundTek delivers the advantage of low cost production in a conventional 8-inch silicon CMOS commercial fab, that is proven for high volume commercial production. In short, we deliver the best of NTU’s advanced process technology know-how, as well as the efficiency and flexibility of a commercial foundry.” he added.

While silicon is opaque in the visible spectrum, it is transparent at infrared wavelengths, so it is good at guiding light. The telecom standard in fibre-optics communication is mainly conducted in the wavelength region where optical fibres have small transmission loss, and they are in the O-band and C-band wavelengths. This low-loss wavelength region ranges from 1260 nm to 1625 nm and is divided into five wavelength bands referred to as the O-, E-, S-, C- and L-bands. Among these five bands, the O-band (original band: 1260-1360 nm) was historically the first wavelength band used for optical communication, because signal distortion (due to chromatic dispersion) is minimum. It was also because optical fibres produced in the mid 1970s showed its lowest loss near the O-band.

Today, optical fibres show its lowest loss in the C-band (conventional band: 1530-1565 nm), and thus, is commonly used in many metro, long-haul, ultra-long-haul, and submarine optical transmission systems combined with the wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) and erbium doped fibre amplifiers (EDFA) technologies.

The research will be jointly performed by NTU School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering’s (NTU EEE) research staff and CompoundTek’s engineers.  “NTU will bring its experience in the design of Si-photonics and full characterisation capability in the wavelength range from O- and C-Band to Mid-infrared,” said NTU EEE Professor Wang Hong, NTU’s silicon photonics expert.

Dr. Wang Hong (left) of NTU and Paul Chia (right) of CompoundTek holds an 8″ Silicon Photonics wafer.

This collaboration will enhance CompoundTek’s 200mm 180-110nm foundry process capabilities and know-how which includes patents, IPs, trademarks, and trade secrets.

This new RCA will also strengthen CompoundTek’s ability to support future customer requirements in Si-photonics chips manufacturing and to develop their next generation SiPh capabilities for telecom and datacom applications.

About Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is an autonomous research university in Singapore with extensive investment and development focus in SiP. NTU is consistently ranked amongst the world’s best universities in all of the major college and university rankings and is regarded as one of the top universities in the world. In the 2018 QS World University Rankings, NTU is ranked 12th in the world and 1st in Asia.

About CompoundTek Pte Ltd

CompoundTek provides silicon photonics enhanced foundry services to convert customer designs into reality with proprietary manufacturing processes in dedicated 8” CMOS foundry. The fab supports fast turn-around full reticle field or Multi Project Wafers (MPW), and high-volume mass production requirements. For more information, please visit www.compoundtek.com.

Singapore, Aug 20, 2018 – CompoundTek, a leading commercial Silicon Photonics foundry service provider, today announced that Rajkumar, Chairman and CEO, will participate in the following photonics technology summit in August.

Event:                          EPIC World Photonics Technology Summit

Location:                     Hilton Brussels Grand Place, Carrefour de l’Europe 3, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Date:                           Thursday, Aug 30, 2018

Presentation Time:   2:40 p.m. Belgium time

The purpose of this unique Summit is to bring experts and leaders from industrial companies around the world to discuss photonics technology developments and challenges. The event is by invitation only at CTO/CEO level, 1 representative per company, with an audience of 120 participants from 28 countries.

This unique forum aims to address the main challenges of photonic technologies. Some of these challenges are:

• The Industry 4.0 challenge: Is it driven by and for Photonics?
• The healthcare challenge: Photonics innovation has a faster pace than clinical adoption, how can we change that?
• The transport challenge: LIDAR and camera systems for automotive are of key interest for TIER-1 suppliers, are we addressing their needs in functionality and price?
• The material challenge: As new photonics applications raised, many new requirements for material suppliers rise, while at the same time they are asked to keep volumes low. Is standardization the solution?
• Bringing the scientific goals to industry challenge: New scientific outcomes in quantum technologies, new concepts in space observation, ghost imaging, should have a clear map towards industry up-take. Are we addressing the longer-term applications of photonics?
• The production challenge: Is vertical integration the solution for production or is there a role for contract manufacturing.

Rajkumar’s topic will be “Is Silicon Photonics a Mainstream CMOS Foundry Offering?”

Rajkumar before becoming a Semiconductor Entrepreneur had more than 20 years in the semiconductor foundry business transforming and managing 200mm and 300mm world class fabs plus being responsible for a US$1.2B business unit. Foundries and innovative semiconductor business models has been very much part of his professional life and continues to be a key passion.

CompoundTek , a key start-up that Rajkumar founded together with other industry leaders is poised to address one of the main challenges of photonic technologies related to mass production of Silicon Photonics ICs.

At the same time, one of the technical advisors to CompoundTek, Dr. Wang Hong, will also be attending the said summit. Dr. Wang is currently a Professor in School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University. He is also the Director of Nanyang Nano Fabrication Centre (N2FC) and Deputy Director of Silicon Technologies – Centre of Excellence (Si-COE). He has authored or co-authored over 260 technical papers and 2 book chapters and filed 2 patents. His current research interests include III-V and Si Photonics, III-V devices and technology, micro- and nano-fabrication, RF Si MOS devices and technologies and RF MEMS.

About EPIC
EPIC is the industry association that promotes the sustainable development of organisations working in the field of photonics in Europe. Members encompass the entire value chain from LED lighting, Photovoltaic solar energy, Photonics Integrated Circuits, Optical components, Lasers, Sensors, Imaging, Displays, Projectors, Optic Fiber, and other photonic related technologies.

About CompoundTek

CompoundTek provides silicon photonics enhanced foundry services to convert customer designs into reality with proprietary manufacturing processes in dedicated 8” CMOS foundry. The fab supports fast turn-around full reticle field or Multi Project Wafers (MPW), and high-volume mass production requirements. For more information, please visit www.compoundtek.com.