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Sam Dale, Senior Technology Analyst, IDTechEx, says opportunities for photonic integrated circuits platforms are expected to grow in the next decade.

PICs offer significant advantages over electronic ICs.

Since light travels around 3X faster than electricity, PICs can transmit data with much higher throughput. Propagation losses are also typically much smaller compared to resistance losses in electronic ICs. These attributes allow photonic waveguides to achieve up to ten times better data transfer efficiency, one hundred times higher bandwidth and much shorter latency( 0.3 times) when compared to their electronic counterparts, whilst typically saving energy too.

Additionally, PICs can be integrated into modern CMOS processes and are relatively easy to combine with existing electronic systems. This enhances their versatility and effectiveness in advancing data communication technology.

It should come as no surprise that PIC transceivers are fast becoming essential tools in the AI revolution, where they speed up connections between nodes in data centers whilst reducing power consumption, allowing larger AI models to be trained and executed.

IDTechEx’ s recent report on the topic Silicon Photonics and Photonic Integrated Circuits 2025 – 2035: Technologies, Market, Forecasts, predicts this application to be the major contributor to its US $ 54 billion forecast for the PIC market in 2035.

However, the impact of PICs will be felt across many other applications, including connecting 5G base stations together, LiDAR and even photonic quantum computing.

Silicon photonics: why are alternative platforms important?

Silicon photonics, which takes advantage of existing semiconductor processes, is the most common PIC material class. This typically uses a silicon-on-insulator( SOI) material platform of silicon and silica.

Compatibility with mature-node processes has meant that a wide swathe of the foundry market has invested in PIC manufacturing, with TSMC highlighting the technology’ s importance with its introduction of a 65nm silicon photonics manufacturing process in 2024.

However, as the market explodes over the next decade, the opportunities for alternative materials that do not suffer from some of the disadvantages of silicon photonics are expected to grow.

Replacing silicon in SOI systems with silicon nitride( SiN) offers an alternative silicon photonics platform. Silicon nitride has lower losses and greater power efficiency, with a wider transparency window.

However, its manufacturing ecosystem is limited, and SiN’ s low dielectric contrast with silica increases area usage. Thus, it is mostly used in non-

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