Photonics' Third Era: Why Integration Is Now a Manufacturing Story

AI infrastructure is outgrowing legacy optics. Energy per bit, bandwidth density, and tail latency determine GPU utilization at scale, and the integration tier that meets these requirements is only now reaching production. It arrived through three eras of photonic integration. The first assembled optical systems from discrete parts and exotic materials. The second brought silicon photonics, which solved the modulator and waveguide problem but left the laser outside the foundry flow. The third closes that gap. Heterogeneous integration combines III-V gain materials, modulators, photodetectors, and waveguides in a single wafer monolithic process: a single industrial flow that absorbs new device types into the same design rules, the way CMOS did for electronics.

Crowley presents advancements in silicon photonics heterogeneous integration and the manufacturing considerations shaping next-generation optical platforms. The presentation will explore testing, validation, and the transition of photonic integration technologies into scalable production environments, as well as touching on key applications.

About the presenter
Matt Crowley is chief executive officer of Scintil Photonics, where he leads the company's mission to deliver advanced external light sources and integrated photonic circuits that enable AI datacenters to scale performance while reducing power consumption. A commercial physicist by training, Crowley built his career transitioning advanced semiconductor technologies from development to volume manufacturing. Before Scintil, he led MEMS technology company Vesper Technologies to high-volume production and through its acquisition by Qualcomm. Before Vesper he was the founder of Sand 9, a MEMS oscillator company acquired by Analog Devices. He holds a degree from Princeton University.