Photonic design automation flow for coupler designs in 2.5D hybrid integrated lasers in a 300mm silicon photonic process

Lasers integrated in a silicon photonics flow are critical to support emerging applications in co-packaged optics. To maintain a low power budget, it is essential to design waveguide couplers that transfer power from lasers to the photonics integrated circuit with minimal coupling loss. In this work, an automation flow is presented for designing waveguide couplers for 2.5D hybrid-integrated lasers in the silicon photonics process flow. These couplers were developed using a 300 mm CMOS-compatible silicon photonics process developed at the Albany NanoTech Complex in Albany, NY. Prefabricated III-V laser dies were bonded into etched pockets on the wafer in a butt-coupling configuration using precision pick-and-place tools. The automation flow was developed to design waveguide couplers optimized for low insertion loss in addition to high misalignment tolerance. Simulation results and initial experimental validations demonstrate the effectiveness of the coupler designs, with one design achieving an average insertion loss of 3.1 dB.