Post-Fab Laser Trimming: Increasing Yield and Lowering Power Consumption of PICs

In recent years photonics has received a lot of attention as a way to extend the growth of semiconductor devices beyond the boundaries of the Moore's Law. PICs (Photonics Integrated Chips) are now being used in interconnects to enable high-speed data transfer between components, reducing latency and energy consumption particularly in datacenters and telecommunications systems. While wafer yields of mature semiconductor technologies have reached figures higher than 98%, yields in photonics are much lower. The paper presents a laser-based post fabrication method for recovering imperfect PICs, as well as the basic concepts for the automation that is necessary for an economically viable process.