Analysis of mass production testing challenges for silicon photonics CPO chips

As AI and HPC drive growing bandwidth demands, silicon photonics and NPO/CPO solutions are being pushed into next-generation data center applications. However, to achieve high-volume manufacturing of high-performance PICs (photonic integrated circuits), solving chip performance alone is not enough; test infrastructure that can keep pace with mass production is also required. Silicon photonics testing differs from conventional chip testing, introducing multi-domain measurement requirements such as fiber alignment, coupling efficiency, and polarization management, and must rely on automated alignment and parallel electro-optical testing to avoid testing becoming a capacity bottleneck. Moreover, no single supplier currently covers the entire testing process, so ecosystem collaboration among equipment makers, probe vendors, foundries, and other parties is seen as key to scaling silicon photonics testing. The current coverage mainly focuses on analysis and explanation of this testing challenge; no specific mass production timeline or deployment progress has been reported.

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