POET Releases Multi-Product Mask Set to Production

TORONTO, Dec. 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- POET Technologies Inc. (“POET” or the “Company”) (TSX Venture: PTK; OTCQX: POETF) a leading designer of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) for the data center and tele-communication markets, announced today that it has launched its first multi-product wafer (MPW) mask set for production. The MPW comprises multiple products, including custom designs for specific applications and customers.

The MPW tape-out, which commits product designs to manufacturing, incorporates all the new features of the Optical Interposer announced in late October and is largely in-line with the product roadmap presented at the Company’s Annual General Meeting in August of 2020. Included are designs for two variants of 100G CWDM4 Optical Engines for two different customers, a 100G design for an LR4 transmit optical sub-assembly (TOSA), a 400G receive optical sub-assembly (ROSA) and a 400G FR4 externally modulated laser (EML)-based Optical Engine, and three different designs for Light Engines, including two operating in the “O-Band” for data communications applications and another in the “C-Band” for sensing and computing applications. The tape-out also includes various test structures for evaluation and incorporation in future product designs.

In electronics and photonics design, a tape-out is the final result of a design process for integrated circuits before they are sent to manufacturing. The tape-out is the point at which a graphic for the photomask of the circuit is sent to the fabrication facility – a milestone frequently celebrated by all those who worked on the project.

New features announced previously and now incorporated into the Optical Interposer enhance critical performance, manufacturability and versatility of the platform. To improve the overall performance of the Optical Interposer in transmitting light without significant losses, POET produced waveguide designs that minimized or eliminated reflections of light at the interface of the laser and the waveguide, a problem that is common in photonic device integration. In addition, the Company incorporated several features that minimize losses as light travels through the device, including its latest generation of Mach-Zehnder Interferometry (“MZI”)-based multiplexers, which reduce the loss of signal from this device to less than 20% (<1.0 dB), believed to be industry-leading performance for this type of device. Improved spot-size converters, able to match different diameters (modes) of light beams (for more efficient coupling between devices), were implemented with losses of less than 10% (<0.5 dB), far exceeding best-in-class. To connect efficiently to off-the-shelf components, such as top-entry photodetectors and vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), POET incorporated improved vertical mirrors into the Optical Interposer, expanding the overall versatility of the platform. The Company designed unique fiber-attach-units (FAUs) with matching passive alignment structures on the Optical Interposer that facilitates alignment while providing a low-loss attachment of POET’s optical engines in customers’ transceivers. Finally, new designs of fiducials on both the Optical Interposer and POET designed lasers better enable sub-micron accuracy for mechanical pick-and-place assembly of components.