Kithmin

As the demand for faster, more energy-efficient data communication pushes cloud infrastructure to its limits, the fundamental scaling constraints of traditional electrical interconnects are becoming critical bottlenecks. Silicon Photonics emerges as the definitive, transformative solution. By leveraging light for data transmission and utilizing mature, high-volume CMOS manufacturing processes, Silicon Photonics enables the dense, monolithic integration of critical optical components, waveguides, modulators, and detectors onto a single silicon chip. This capability paves the way for the high-speed, ultra-low-power communication necessary for future data systems.

This talk moves from the fundamentals to focus on the next evolution: Co-packaged Optics (CPO). It will detail how Silicon Photonic components are integrated directly alongside high-bandwidth switching ASICs, drastically reducing the distance between the electrical and optical domains and alleviating the I/O power wall. The presentation will introduce the core concepts of light-guiding in silicon, the device building blocks, the use of open-source ecosystems for design, and key system-level applications. Finally, we will address the current integration and packaging challenges that CPO solves, and explore the vast future opportunities in data centers, biosensing, and disruptive emerging fields such as photonic quantum computing. This technology is not just an incremental improvement; it is the essential next step in scaling the capacity and efficiency of global data infrastructure.

Biography:

Kithmin Wickremasinghe is a Photonics Design Engineer with a Master's in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of The University of British Columbia. He was a Research Assistant working on Silicon Photonic Integrated Sensing in the ECE System-on-a-chip (SoC) Lab and UBC Biosensors Research Group, co-supervised by Prof. Sudip Shekhar and Prof. Lukas Chrostowski.

His master's research focused on microfluidic flow-rate sensing and control techniques, from portable systems to chip-scale implementations. He has co-authored several publications on Integrated Sensing and Biosensing, Silicon Photonics, Lasers, and Wearable Biomedical Devices, and is currently interested in Optical Interconnects and CMOS IC Design for Biomedical Sensors. He also did a research internship in the Photonics R&D team at Ansys Canada Ltd. and was a semi-finalist in the UBC 3MT Challenge 2023. His hobbies include basketball, hiking in the mountains of British Columbia, and pencil/charcoal sketching.

Address:United States