Think Research

IBM and Kymata Team to Develop Optical Chips

Under the agreement, IBM and Kymata plan to jointly develop optical chips used to help networks drive data and information at higher speeds across optical networks. Products will be designed around IBM’s unique siliconoxynitride (SiON) process technology. SiON applies high-volume semiconductor manufacturing techniques to optical chip-making for the first time, to yield cost/performance advantages that can extend the use of optics in voice and data networks.

Unlike previous laser technologies, which are called "active," since they convert electrons into light, the "passive" components to be developed don't change light into electrons or vice versa. The SiON process technology was developed at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory. SiON uses a unique, cost-effective siliconoxynitride core waveguide layer to produce optical switching devices that are not only smaller and more flexible than similar devices produced by conventional manufacturing processes, but also allow for enhanced functionality not previously possible in optical communications networks.

The highly-integrated, compact and tunable optical products IBM and Kymata expect to develop include: modules to provide enhanced functionality for filtering wavelengths of light beams sent through a fiber simultaneously; filters used to balance the intensity of light at different wavelengths; and versatile optical switches.

  Waveguide on optical component