Advancing Precision Process Technology for Photonic Chip Production
As integrated photonics moves toward large-scale manufacturing, the precision of front-end fabrication processes becomes increasingly critical. The performance of photonic chips depends directly on how accurately waveguides, gratings, and other structures can be defined during wafer fabrication.
Within the PhotonDelta ecosystem, partners are working to strengthen the front-end fabrication capabilities required to produce next-generation silicon nitride (SiN) and indium phosphide (InP) photonic chips. This collaboration will help improve technologies that determine performance and overall manufacturability, such as lithography, etching, and process control.
Overall, by aligning research institutions, foundries, and equipment developers, the aim is to ensure that advanced photonic chip designs can be translated into reliable, high-yield production processes – suitable for a variety of applications in quantum computing, datacom, mobility, healthcare and agrifood.
The Challenge
PIC performance relies heavily on fabrication precision. Parameters such as critical dimensions, line-edge roughness, layer thickness, and mask overlay can all directly influence optical loss, coupling efficiency, and overall device performance. Even nanometre-scale variations introduced during lithography or etching can affect how a photonic chip behaves.
Today, several manufacturing challenges still limit reproducibility and scale:
- Lithography-induced variation can reduce pattern fidelity and introduce excess propagation and coupling losses.
- Line-edge and sidewall roughness from etching can increase optical scattering and limit ultra-low-loss performance.
- Producing thick, crack-free silicon nitride layers for some advanced applications remains difficult.
- Process capabilities are not always clearly mapped into usable design rules for photonic device engineers.
- Full understanding of how equipment capability, process control, and component performance interact is still developing.
These issues can lead to fabrication iterations, slower yield learning, and longer development cycles. Without stronger links between process development, equipment innovation, metrology, and photonic design, front-end manufacturing risks becoming a bottleneck for the next generation of high-performance PICs.
The Opportunity
The Netherlands has a uniquely strong foundation for addressing these challenges. The PhotonDelta ecosystem brings together leading academic research organisations, pilot manufacturing facilities, specialist photonic foundries, and globally recognised semiconductor equipment companies.
By coordinating these capabilities, the ecosystem can improve both precision and reproducibility in photonic chip manufacturing. That means not only better process control, but also a clearer understanding of which fabrication tolerances matter most for advanced devices.
Advances in front-end process technology will make it possible to:
- reduce fabrication iterations during device development
- improve wafer-scale reproducibility and process control
- lower propagation losses in silicon nitride waveguides
- improve yield for advanced photonic components
- support new generations of devices for communications, sensing, and quantum technologies
By linking design requirements more closely to process capability, metrology, and equipment innovation, the initiative helps bridge the gap between laboratory breakthroughs and scalable manufacturing.
The Collaborative Solution
This Front-End Manufacturing initiative brings together partners across the Dutch photonics ecosystem to strengthen manufacturing capability for both SiN and InP platforms.
- The University of Twente will lead research and development on silicon nitride process optimisation, focusing on lithography fidelity, sidewall roughness reduction, and advanced waveguide fabrication techniques. The aim is to bring high technology readiness levels to these front-end processes.
- TNO will contribute expertise in process development and manufacturing roadmapping, helping translate advanced research into scalable production capabilities. This will also involve an analysis of market specifications and equipment capabilities, as well as engaging equipment developers.
- LioniX International will work on improving lithography and etching processes for ultra-low-loss silicon nitride waveguides: to lower sidewall roughness and increase reproducibility.
- New Origin is developing large-scale SiN foundry manufacturing capabilities based on 200 mm wafers. They expect to fully be operational by the end of 2027, when they’ll have facilities capable of producing 25.000 wafers per year.
- SMART Photonics will define design-of-experiments approaches, run quarterly wafer starts on stable production processes, and expand the use of in-line metrology for PIC wafers. This work will also help establish critical-to-quality parameters and clearer quality standards for process control.
- TU/e’s work will focus on developing front-end manufacturing processes, including deep UV lithography, etching, deposition, and metallisation, within an agile, end-to-end PIC production line. It will also support the implementation of new process modules, expanded in-line metrology, and analysis at both process and component level to better understand how fabrication outcomes affect functional device performance.
The ultimate aim is for these partners to build a coordinated framework that connects photonic design requirements with fabrication capabilities and equipment innovation.
Ecosystem Benefits
By addressing front-end fabrication as a shared ecosystem challenge, this initiative delivers major benefits for the PhotonDelta ecosystem, including:
- Faster innovation cycles: which will reduce the number of fabrication iterations needed.
- Higher device performance: will enable ultra-low-loss waveguides and aid precision photonic structures.
- Stronger manufacturing capabilities: will support the scalable production of SiN and InP photonic chips.
- Closer alignment between design and fabrication: will create clearer design rules and predictive models for photonic devices.
Most importantly, the initiative overall is designed to strengthen the foundations of photonic manufacturing in the Netherlands, ensuring that the ecosystem can support the next generation of photonic chip technologies.
