Back to the Future?

25 years of InP development for high speed devices

Dr. Johan Klootwijk, Architect at Philips MEMS and Micro Devices (MMD), Johan.klootwijk@philips.com

25 years ago it was widely believed that for creating higher speed circuits, other technologies than Si/SiGe should be considered, in particular for 40Gb/s optical communication. Despite serious industry attempts in developing alternatives, silicon technology defied expectations and proved its potential for achieving the required higher frequencies. In Philips research we had an activity on the exploration and development of InP technology, but this turned out to be ahead of its time.

After this, I was involved in other research topics for quite some years, one of which was developing high quality passives. On this topic, which is also a very important aspect of Moore’s law, I will share some highlights during the talk.

Now, industry interest in InP has been renewed. For this I have returned to academia, more specifically the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), in the groups of Prof. Peter Baltus and Prof. Kevin Williams. Here we will once again be attempting to develop InP electronics, eventually aiming at integrating electronics and photonics onto one platform, but what has changed compared to 25 years ago?