Kristof Croes

Silicon photonics, a technology where optical and electronic components are integrated on the same platform, is rapidly growing from a small niche to a technology enabler for higher speed data transmission in data centers, telecommunications, and high-performance computing.  Such fast growing field poses challenges and opportunities for the reliability and failure analysis engineers working in this field. This presentation overviews such challenges and opportunities encountered in the context of imec’s Silicon Photonics reliability research. For each developed device (being photo diodes, modulators, heaters, lasers, …), the related degradation mechanisms will be introduced together with their proposed testing and qualification methodologies and failure analysis challenges. The basics of each device will be introduced in detail such that the presentation can be followed by a broader audience with interests in reliability and failure analysis.

Kristof Croes received an MSc in physics and biostatistics. He obtained a PhD concerning the development of statistical techniques for planning reliability experiments. For seven years, he was product and application manager of the package level reliability products of the Singaporean based company Chiron holdings. Beginning 2007, he went back to research, where he is currently scientific director working on the reliability of advanced interconnects, packages and silicon photonics devices. Kristof was an (invited/tutorial) speaker at several leading-edge semi-conductor conferences [IRPS, IEDM, IITC, IPFA, ADMETA, …]. He also (co)authored more than 100 articles in the field of reliability.