Photonic Wafer-Scale Testing System

A photonic wafer-scale testing system is required by Silicon Photonics Group at the University of Southampton (Highfield Campus) for research activities.

As one of the leading research team, the Silicon Photonics group has made a significant contribution in the field of silicon photonics most notably in waveguides, optical modulators, grating couplers, optical filters and switches. Collaborations with a number of industrial and academic institutions have been established.

Silicon photonics is an emerging technology for making devices for optical communication systems, high-speed computing or various sensing applications. Complicated photonic circuits can be made on Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) wafers based on a similar fabrication technology as used for CMOS industry. Similar to the CMOS industry, wafer-scale testing is going to be a critical step for quality control and failure diagnoses for silicon photonics.

Grating couplers will be used as optical input/output (I/O) on photonic circuits to couple light into/out from single-mode optical fibres. Grating coupler is a device made of periodically etched lines to diffract light upwards to the optical fibres. Most grating couplers are about 10μm by 10μm in size, which may vary depending on specific designs. The accuracy for positioning the single-mode fibres for testing is required to be better than 1μm. We also developed a new type of erasable grating couplers, which can be used as optical I/O for testing and then erased with high power laser afterwards. Therefore, a tailor-made high power laser source used particularly for erasing the gratings would be required.

The testing system is targeted to work with 8 inch wafers. Both passive and active photonic devices would be fabricated on the wafer. Apart from all those optical I/O mentioned above, high-speed electrical I/O would also be required. It may carry signals up to 50 Gb/s.

Full details in relation to the requirement can be found in the Specification (File 4).

Additional information:

Bidders are advised that the maximum budget for this project in its entirety is £250,000 GBP (excluding VAT) and any bids submitted in excess of £250k will not be accepted.

The entire project value is intended to reflect the estimated cost of the initial purchase of the wafer testing system as well as the warranty and servicing contract for a four year period PLUS the potential future costs of any accessories to be developed under this contract (further details in relation to the development potential can be found in the Invitation to Tender documents (Specification, File 4)).

The estimated contract value for the initial cost of the system purchase and four year warranty and service contract is estimated to be between £150,000 and £180,000 GBP (excluding VAT)

Details of current expenditure or potential future uptake are given in good faith as a guide to past purchasing and current planning to assist you in submitting your Tender. They should not be interpreted as an undertaking to purchase any goods or services to any particular value and do not form part of the Contract.

Is a Recurrent Procurement Type? : No