News: Optoelectronics
20 March 2026
OpenLight sampling first heterogeneously integrated silicon photonics-based 3.2T DR8 PIC
Photonic application-specific integrated circuit (PASIC) chip designer and manufacturer OpenLight of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, CA, USA (which launched as an independent company in June 2022, introducing the first open silicon photonics platform with heterogeneously integrated III-V lasers, modulators, amplifiers and detectors) has announced sample availability of its first heterogeneously integrated silicon photonics-based 3.2T DR8 photonic integrated circuit (PIC).
Fabricated on the PH18DA process of specialty analog foundry Tower Semiconductor Ltd of Migdal Haemek, Israel, the PIC integrates OpenLight’s 1310nm distributed feedback (DFB) lasers with high-performance indium phosphide (InP)-based 448G electro-absorption modulators (EAMs), delivering a highly integrated, low-power solution.
This follows more than a year of focused design and process optimization on OpenLight’s process design kit (PDK) platform in collaboration with Tower. As a result, OpenLight has significantly advanced its 448G EAM technology, demonstrating a differential 3dB bandwidth approaching 100GHz and extinction ratio (ER) greater than 3.5dB at 2.0V differential. These results enable robust performance at terabit data rates while maintaining power efficiency and manufacturability. This highly integrated PIC solution is well suited for not only module and transceiver applications but also emerging co-packaged optics (CPO) and near-packaged optical applications, where power efficiency, thermal performance, and packaging simplicity are critical.
Enabled by its high-bandwidth, low-drive-performance 448G EAM technology, OpenLight’s 3.2T DR8 PICs eliminate the need for externally coupled continuous-wave (CW) laser sources and significantly simplify packaging requirements. By achieving about 90% coupling efficiency between the active elements and the silicon waveguide, along with the low drive swing of 2V of the InP EAM, OpenLight enables an extremely lower-power solution. At full 3.2T operation, the PIC’s power dissipation is less than 2W at 80°C, which corresponds to about 0.63pJ/bit, representing a substantial improvement in thermal efficiency compared with previous-generation designs.
Building on this foundation, OpenLight is introducing the 3.2T DR8 PIC as an extension of the same platform architecture used for its 1.6T DR8 PIC, enabling a consistent, scalable design approach across data-rate generations and allowing customers to leverage a common platform allowing seamless and fast scale deployment from 1.6T to 3.2T deployments. All active components on the PH18DA platform, including those used in the 3.2T DR8 PIC, have been independently qualified to the Telcordia GR 468 standard, as recently announced, providing additional assurance for deployment in high-reliability data-center environments.
“Looking ahead, we see substantial potential for our PH18DA technology to expand our addressable market through the integration of lasers, EAMs, and other InP components within our silicon photonic platform,” says says Dr Ed Preisler, VP & general manager of Tower’s RF business unit.
“The 3.2T DR8 PIC with 448G EAMs delivers clear benefits in power efficiency, cost and time to production,” says OpenLight’s CEO Dr Adam Carter. “Superior performance of our 448G EAMs enables an easy straightforward scalable path for our customers to transition from 1.6T to 3.2T at 400G per lane and is well suited for not only DR8 and FR4 transciever module applications but also emerging co-packaged optics (CPO) and near-packaged optical (NPO) applications.”
These platform improvements have also enabled continued progress on OpenLight’s 1.6T DR8 PIC, with 224G EAM devices now in beta sampling, offering both LRO and LPO variants. OpenLight has received orders from major transceiver manufacturers to support transceiver builds and qualification programs, reflecting growing adoption from customers as designs move toward production.
Platform alpha samples of the 3.2T DR8 PIC are available now, with bare die available immediately and an evaluation board featuring an integrated flip-chip 448G modulator and driver expected by the end of March. Beta samples of the 3.2T DR8 PIC for module and transceiver qualification are expected to be available in fourth-quarter 2026.
OpenLight raises $34m in Series A funding round to scale integrated photonics for AI data centers
OpenLight completes Telcordia GR-468 qualification for silicon photonics components
OpenLight demos 224G InP-based modulator for Tower’s PH18DA platform
