SMART Photonics is a pure-play foundry providing InP-based photonic integrated circuit (PIC) fabrication services. They offer Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) services and Process Design Kits (PDKs) to reduce costs and accelerate the development of custom PICs for telecommunications, sensing, and medical applications.
Funding
$246.3M raised to dateRaised to date based on public sources. This may differ from the amount the company actually raised and is based only on what is publicly available on the internet.
ABBBIDT+6Founders
Product
Problem
Developing advanced photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for telecommunications, sensing, and medical applications is hindered by the complexity and cost of custom fabrication. Accessing foundry processes and designing novel PICs requires specialized tools and significant upfront investment, limiting innovation for many organizations.
Solution
SMART Photonics provides a pure-play foundry service for integrated photonics, enabling the development and fabrication of custom PICs. They offer generic photonic integration processes and Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) services, which allow multiple designs to be fabricated on a single wafer, thereby reducing costs and accelerating development cycles. Their Process Design Kits (PDKs) integrate libraries of proven photonic components, streamlining the design process for engineers. This approach democratizes access to advanced InP-based photonic technology, facilitating the creation of next-generation optical devices.
Target Audience
The primary customers are companies and research institutions involved in telecommunications, data centers, sensing (e.g., LiDAR), and medical diagnostics that require custom-designed photonic integrated circuits.
Features
- Pure-play InP foundry for integrated photonic circuits.
- Generic photonic integration processes and Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) services for cost-effective prototyping.
- Process Design Kits (PDKs) available for mainstream design software packages (Synopsys, VPIphotonics, Luceda, Lumerical, Nazca, PhotonDesign).
- Fabrication on 4-inch InP wafers.
- Offers epitaxial growth services for optoelectronic quality thin films.
- Provides high-end scanner lithography for InP wafer processing.
- Supports custom layer stack development for quantum wells, photodiodes, and other specialized components.
- Conducts up to three design rule check iterations per MPW submission.
- Offers monthly production status updates for MPW runs.