DR. TOBIAS KÖNIGER, Head of Product Management Semiconductor Packaging, DELO Adhesives
With megatrends such as AI, autonomous driving or connectivity, energy demand will likely explode in the years to come. Colossal data centers are already being built to process this enormous amount of data. The international energy agency (IEA) states that global AI data centers will demand as much as nearly 1,000 TWh of electricity per year by 2026. That equates up to 5% of the power needed globally.
Reconciling technological progress with a sustainable environment worth living in, then, is one of the semiconductor sector’s biggest challenges.
For managing the energy needed for data processing, a key future technology will be silicon photonics, which enables seamless integration of optical components like waveguides, switches, and modulators with electronic circuits on a single silicon chip. This technology uses photons for information transfer and requires nearly three times less energy compared to conventional electronic signals.
One innovation we see as promising is photonic integrated circuits (PICs), which are chips that contain optical components for transferring information via photons. Packaging photonic integrated circuits is critical for creating reliable high-performance devices, with achieving requirements like precise optical coupling alignment, reflow stability, and high thermal management proving to be a challenge. Essential to overcoming these challenges are adhesives, which play a significant role in packaging, requiring properties like bonding strength, optical transmission, and environmental resistance.
Key bonding tasks in photonic packaging, such as Optical Coupling and V-Groove Bonding, are already being explored. At DELO, we put a focus on adhesive requirements such as optical and mechanical properties while at the same time maintaining performance under different conditions. Recent advancements in adhesive technology have made way for device efficiency and reliability, supported by experimental data on coupling efficiency.
As for our company, we are constantly aiming to contribute to a sustainable future with our adhesive and process innovations.
Click here to read the 2025 Executive Viewpoints in Semiconductor Digest
