Photon Design, a global leader in photonic simulation CAD software, has helped enable Photonect’s development of a radical, high-performance, low-loss, optical interconnect technology. Epoxy-based optical interconnects, used extensively in datacenters, AI, telecoms, and HPC applications, are restricting data transmission speeds. Photonect has addressed this issue with an epoxy-free, fiber-to-chip, laser fusion packaging technology that directly bonds optical fibers or glass components directly to the photonic chip. This not only gives faster, scalable, optical interconnects, but also eliminates common failure modes in epoxy adhesive techniques, such as thermal drift, aging, and power-induced degradation.

Photonect took a simulation-driven design approach to its optical interconnect development, using Photon Design’s FIMMWAVE, a powerful simulation tool for developing waveguide structures and FIMMPROP to model propagation. Dr Juniyali Nauriyal, CEO of Photonect, said, “Photon Design’s simulation tools enabled rapid iteration and confident transition from design to fabrication, along with accurate modelling of edge coupling to commercially available, photonic foundry processes. Eliminating epoxy gives highly efficient coupling to third party, photonic devices, with losses below half a dB per facet, at 1310 nm. In fact, our optical interconnections deliver cost savings of between 50% and 80%; are up to 10× faster; support 3× more optical power; and have up to 4× the efficiency.

“The FIMMWAVE simulation tool uses eigenmode expansion (EME) to process simulations quickly and efficiently. This was key, as it enabled rapid iterations in our design approach and confident transition to fabrication, validating low-loss coupling without adhesives.”

Dr. Dominic Gallagher, CEO of Photon Design, added, “As AI, cloud computing and high-speed networking push data rates and power density demands higher, fiber-to-chip attachment becomes the bottleneck. Traditional epoxy-based packaging methods are slow, costly, and increasingly difficult to manufacture in volume. However, using our simulation tools, Photonect has reinvented optical interconnect packaging, with epoxy-free, fiber-to-chip attachment and an ultra-low-loss, silicon dioxide, mode converter design – a game-changer in the industry.”