The Cost of Manufacturing Optics

Tom Hausken

In comparing the economics of producing integrated photonics with those of conventional CMOS, the devil is in the details.

 

figureShare of fabrication versus assembly costs. Source: OIDA

Manufacturing has been much discussed in the optics community, especially given possible U.S. government co-funding for an Institute for Manufacturing Innovation in photonics, potentially worth U.S.$140 million (from all funders) over several years. But what is “optical manufacturing”? What is the manufacturing problem to be solved, and how much does it cost to solve it? The Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA), a division of OSA, examined this topic in its June 2014 Roadmap Report on wafer-based integrated photonics.

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