September 4, 2012 – Singapore’s Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute of the Science and Engineering Research Council of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and MOSIS have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to offer a multiple-project wafer (MPW) service targeting silicon integrated photonics.
The goal of the collaboration is to reduce the cost obstacles and promote broader adoption of silicon photonics devices for the industry. The partnership specifically involves sharing costs for the fabrication, the reticles or masks, the setup and use of the design environment. Photonics designers and researchers will also have access to IME’s device library that includes integrated active and passive devices.
The two partners also are collaborating on multiproject runs for 3D through-silicon vias (TSV) and silicon interposers (TSI), and MEMS devices. These will be available at the end of 2012 and in 1H13, respectively.
"By leveraging the expertise and resources of one of the world’s leading semiconductor research institutes, our partnership with IME will develop efficient and practical approaches in the area of silicon photonics to meet the increasing requirements of industry," stated Wes Hansford, director of MOSIS.
"We look forward to offering our MPW capabilities to the silicon photonics community to enable innovations and product development to accelerate the growth of the silicon photonics industry," added Prof. Dim-Lee Kwong, executive director of IME.