Commoditizing the uncommoditized: chip-scale LiDAR

Abstract

The commoditization of photonics would be possible only with the development of photonic integrated circuits and appropriate volume applications that require them. As such an application, a light detection and ranging(LiDAR) sensor has recently been in strong demand from various applications including autonomous driving. In terms of technology, as silicon photonics enters an industrial phase and begins to utilize the existing CMOS infrastructure, photonic integrated circuits are also expected to enter a virtuous cycle of volume and cost. This work outlines the current status of LiDAR research using the silicon photonics platform in Samsung. Based on the III/V-on-Si technology, Samsung's platform enables the development of chip-scale LiDAR that integrates all photonic devices such as wavelength-tunable laser, semiconductor optical amplifier, and custom optical phased array. With the LiDAR chip in the core, a palm-top LiDAR module prototype including control and signal processing circuits is also presented. Then, initial application-level attempts in autonomous driving are presented in the hope of pathfinding towards the LiDAR commoditization, and more broadly, commoditization of photonics.