Designing for Yield: Production-Grade PDKs for Ultra-high-speed TFLN Photonic Engines

Scaling optical transceivers beyond 200G per lane requires modulator bandwidths exceeding 100 GHz, a regime where silicon photonics hits fundamental material limits. Thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) emerges as a leading candidate, offering compelling advantages for electro-optic modulation: >100 GHz bandwidth, sub-1V drive voltage, and <0.2 dB/cm waveguide loss. But translating these properties into manufacturable products at high volume requires PDKs built on statistically validated compact models, not just nominal performance specifications. This talk presents Lightium's methodology for developing production-grade PDKs on a 200mm TFLN platform. We focus on two areas often overlooked in academic demonstrations: the statistical characterization of process variation across photonic and RF components, and the development of microwave PDK elements — CPW lines, bends, tapers, and vias — that govern system performance above 100 GHz.