Optic2Connect develops software for photonics!

Optic2Connect will be present at this year’s DAC. I caught up with Sean Seah, project manager, to find out more.

First, what’s the company’s X factor and why? (What is it that makes your offering special and noteworthy – how are you different from competitors)?

Optic2Connect develops software solutions for the photonics industry. The demand to manage high volumes of data in networks, especially with the current smart-phone and cloud computing trend, has increased tremendously. As design gets more complex, simulation tools need to scale with regard to fidelity and accuracy.

Currently, photonic designers, scientists, and fabrication engineers adopt an approximated approach from the electrical data to build an equivalent optical model, hence losing on device physics details. At the same time the process is long as the model needs to be described block-by-block with denser blocks representing a more detailed model. Our competitors are well established in their respective domains, electrical or optical, but they are strong in their own respective fields. However, intimate knowledge in both are essential to fully understand this newer generation of photonic devices. Failure to understand fully results in false results from the manufacturing.

With patented know-how, Optic2Connect provides software solutions that SOLVES this pertinent challenge. It maps accurately simulations from one domain to another, e.g. electrical to optical. This technology has been developed by a team of researchers at A*Star – Singapore Public Research Institute. The technology overcomes error-prone and detailed oriented simulation setups. We demonstrated the ability to map without losing any fidelity in the simulation files.

Optic2Connect’s IP differs from its competitors because it simulates directly from the beginning device processing, to electrical device performance until the final high-speed optical eye diagram. This is in stark contrast to the usual method of representing their operation using simplified transfer functions.

Furthermore, the Optic2Connect design flow uses the same reliable tools and processes from the semiconductor industry that are fully compatible with the Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication process of silicon microelectronics. This design flow uses standard tools libraries, device models especially for active components such as modulators, and simulation of these components incorporating the models.

How have you been doing this year so far? Seah said: “It has been excellent! We are racing to complete our product prototypes and we secured a contract from an MNC and another from universities.”

What’s the future path likely to be? Seah added: “We intend to further validate our prototype with our partners from industry and academia, and integrating advanced modulation formats into our solutions. We want to offer a fully integrated solution for photonic devices to our customers. Our goal is to offer a one-stop solution for leading integrated-circuit (IC) manufacturers!”

Why this name? You sounded like a telecom company? Seah said: “We strongly believe the future of communications is via optics which has the ability to circumvent the data bottleneck issues. Optic2Connect is meant to offer connect using optical communications. Our goal is a one-stop solution for optical connections. “

How will the solution significantly shorten product time-to-market and reduce development costs of photonics devices?

For complex photonics devices, minute changes to design parameters are significant and could affect loss performance, and operating voltage requirements. One common approach in the industry today is to physically build the variations into multiple device / runs and test them out. Each run cost is the range of hundreds of thousands and consume precious time. Especially, if the first batch of devices do not meet required parameters and additional batches are required. This cost both money and time, which in turn is more money.

Hence, Optic2Connect provides an elegant solution with our accurate modelling and simulation solutions, this accelerates manufacturing prototypes and at much lower production costs. Our software solutions provide a 10x improvement in time reduction and time to market. Further, our cloud solution overcomes traditional problems of insufficient servers / licenses, especially during periods of peak demand.

Metro450 Conference 2014 discusses all things 450mm wafers!

Thanks to the Enable450 newsletter, sent out by Malcolm Penn, CEO, Future Horizons, here is a piece on the Metro450 Conference 2014, held earlier this year in Israel.

Metro450 is an Israel-based consortium with the goal of helping the metrology companies advance in their fields. The consortium’s members include metrology and related companies, as well as academics who support these companies by performing basic research.

The conference was sponsored by the Israeli Chief Scientist Office, Applied Materials Israel and Intel. There were several goals for the conference: to provide an opportunity for industry leaders as well as academicians to meet and discuss the latest developments in the world of metrology, to present these advances to audiences which would normally not be privy to such information, and to learn more about the international effort in 450mm wafer technology.

Over 200 people attended this conference from Israeli companies and academia, as well as from Europe and the United States. Israeli companies included Applied Materials, Jordan Valley, Nova, KLA, Zeiss Israel, and others. Academic members included researchers from the leading Israeli universities, including the Technion, Tel-Aviv University. and Haifa University.

European companies were represented by ENIAC, as well as large corporations such as ASML as well SME-based companies. The G450C consortium, based in Albany, N.Y. was also well represented at this conference.

Some of the highlights of the conference included scientific discussions of different metrology methods, and their adjunct requirements, such as improved rapid wafer movement, improved sampling methods and fast computing. Presentations also included an overview of the advances necessary to move the industry forward, optical CD metrology, x-ray metrology, and novel piezo-based wafer movement.

A panel discussed various broad industry trends, including the timeline of 450mm wafers, European programs and the Israeli programs. International speakers discussed the European technology model, risk mitigation of 450 through collaborations, 450 collaborative projects under ENIAC, 450mm wafer movement challenges and metrology challenges beyond 14nm.

This second annual Metro450 conference took place this January at the Technion, Israel.

Renesas aims to increase its MCU share in India

Renesas Electronics recently opened its India subsidiary in Bangalore. Elaborating, Sunil Dhar, managing director of Renesas Electronics India said: "We are glad to announce the opening of Renesas Electronics India Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Renesas Electronics Singapore Pte Ltd., located in Bangalore.

"Since 2010, Renesas has been providing technical product support to its customers here via branch offices in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. As part of its expansion plan, Renesas will turn our said branches into a full subsidiary.

"The branch office setup served us well when the organization was small and its role was limited. In order to expand further in terms of opening more offices in India for close customer support, and to be able to provide wider services to customers in India like reference software, hardware, reference solutions which would be developed in India, it would require us to have a permanent establishment here.

"Through this new company, we aim to expand business by providing the best solution offerings and technical support as well as a regional systems solution development expertise to the Indian market."

How does the India R&D team play a role in global innovation and where do you see Renesas Electronics in India five years from now?

He said that over 50 percent of the Renesas India team is application development or field engineers armed with knowledge of embedded hardware and software development and support.

In order to expand the footprint in Indian markets, Renesas plans to build up a strong application engineering team. India Application engineering team will engage with the Renesas headquarters, regional offices to develop new products and solutions dedicated for emerging countries, including India.

The application engineering team and the future solution centre aim to survey the market for solution needs, prepare India designed solutions fitting the price points and specifications points as required in the Indian market. Along with the customers, the team also intends to collaborate with the design houses to create innovative solutions addressing upcoming needs of the market. Our goal is to become the most trusted semiconductor solution provider in India.

What are the India-centric solutions that would be developed from the India Application Engineering team?

Dhar added that the needs of emerging markets are usually different in both specifications as well as price points. By providing dedicated local support via the new company, and with a focus on industrial and automotive applications for two- and four-wheelers, Renesas aims to increase its MCU share in India and expand its solution offerings with rich lineup of kit solutions (MCU + SoC + power devices) and platform reference boards (boards with complete ecosystem including devices and software) to provide customers a shorter time-to-market.

The team will initially focus on automotive and particularly, two-wheeler solutions. The intention is to expand the scope of the application engineering team’s activity to industrial and consumer appliances in near term.

What is the overall India employee strength? How are the investment plans looking up?

Dhar said: "In order to expand our footprint in Indian markets, we will double our headcount in near term.  Currently, we are just under 30 staff and over 50 percent of us are application development or field engineers armed with the knowledge of embedded hardware and software development and support. Upon setting up the organization in Sales and Marketing roles in the initial days, we also have plans to announce the setting up of a Solutions Centre in India to develop reference application solutions to enable our customers to use our devices.

"We are intending to invest in lab, infrastructure setup and expansion of activities in the next three to five years. Additionally, we are also considering investing towards 3rd party and IDH for enlarged business  engagement."

Trends driving automotive market in India
Regarding trends driving the automotive market in India, Dhar said that Renesas focusses on three business segments – automotive, industrial and home, OA and ICT. Renesas holds more than 40 percent global market share for automotive MCU business. Our target applications for automotive segment are automotive control and automotive infotainment and network.

Renesas has dedication applications solutions for integrated cockpit through system on chip, R-car ecosystem collaboration solution for e-mobility and automotive analog and power devices for driving, steering and braking.

As semiconductor technologies evolved, it has enabled automakers to integrate multiple applications on a single chip significantly reducing the board area; thus optimizing performance and adding new features for comfort, safety and infotainment. Power technologies have brought energy efficiency, limiting power consumption in vehicles. Advancements in process technologies will continue to drive the auto industry in the coming years.

Renesas, for instance, developed the industry's first 28nm flash memory IP for MCUs and the first semiconductor supplier to move from 40nm to 28nm process technology.

"Trends driving auto industry in India and globally are more of less the same. However, for India market, we see a specific demand for two-wheeler solutions and that is our target in coming years," he concluded.

Lastly, I must take the opportunity to thank Ms Shweta Dhadiwal-Baid and Ms Sharmita Mandal for making this happen! ;)