Timepieces that tell you how you are

Apple is Rockley Photonics’ largest customer. So says Rockley in a document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as it prepares to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The Form S-4 document provides details of Rockley’s silicon photonics platform for consumer ‘wearables’ and medical devices, part of the emerging health and wellness market.

Andrew Rickman, Rockley Photonics’s CEO, discusses what the company has been working on and how a wearable device can determine a user’s health.

The first of several articles on silicon photonics-based biosensors for medical and other applications.

Andrew Rickman

Part 1: Consumer Wearables

Ever wondered what the shining green light is doing on the underside of your smartwatch?

The green LED probes the skin to measure various health parameters - biomarkers - of the wearer. Just what light can reveal about a user’s health is a topic that has preoccupied Rockley Photonics for several years.

Rockley is not solely interested in using the visible spectrum to probe the skin but also light at higher wavelengths. Using the infrared portion of the spectrum promises to reveal more about the watch wearer's health.

Rockley can also shed light on its own healthcare activities following the announcement of its merger with SC Health that will enable Rockley to be listed on the NYSE, valued at $1.2 billion.

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Rockley Photonics showcases its in-packaged design at OFC

Rockley Photonics has showcased its in-packaged optics design to select customers and development partners at the OFC show being held in San Diego this week.

The packaged design includes Rockley's own 2 billion transistor layer 3 router chip, and its silicon photonics-based optical transceivers. The layer 3 router chip, described as a terabit device, also includes mixed-signal circuits needed for the optical transceevers' transmit and receive paths.

 Source: Rockley Photonics (annotated by Gazettabyte).Rockley says it is using 500m-reach PSM4 transceivers for the design and that while a dozen ribbon cables are shown, this does not mean there are 12 100-gigabit PSM4 transceivers. The company is not saying what the total optical input-output is. 

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Rockley Photonics eyes multiple markets

Andrew Rickman, founder and CEO of silicon photonics start-up, Rockley Photonics, discusses the new joint venture with Hengtong Optic-Electric, the benefits of the company’s micron-wide optical waveguides and why the timing is right for silicon photonics. 

Andrew Rickman

The joint venture between Rockley Photonics and Chinese firm Hengtong Optic-Electric is the first announced example of Rockley’s business branching out.

The start-up’s focus has been to apply its silicon photonics know-how to data-centre applications. In particular, Rockley has developed an Opto-ASIC package that combines optical transceiver technology with its own switch chip design. Now it is using the transceiver technology for its joint venture.

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Professor Graham Reed: The calm before the storm

Silicon photonics luminaries series

Interview 3: Professor Graham Reed

Despite a half-century track record driving technology, electronics is increasingly calling upon optics for help. “It seems to me that this is a marriage that is really going to define the future,” says Graham Reed, professor of silicon photonics at the University of Southampton’s Optoelectronics Research Centre.

The optics alongside the electronics does not have to be silicon photonics, he says, but silicon as a photonics technology is attractive for several reasons. 

“What makes silicon photonics interesting is its promise to enable low-cost manufacturing, an important requirement for emerging consumer applications,” says Reed. And being silicon-based, it is much more compatible than other photonics technologies. “It probably means silicon photonics is going to win out,” he says. 

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Tackling system design on a data centre scale

Silicon photonics luminaries series

Interview 1: Andrew Rickman

Silicon photonics has been a recurring theme in the career of Andrew Rickman. First, as a researcher looking at the feasibility of silicon-based optical waveguides, then as founder of Bookham Technologies, and after that as a board member of silicon photonics start-up, Kotura.

Andrew Rickman

Now as CEO of start-up Rockley Photonics, his company is using silicon photonics alongside its custom ASIC and software to tackle a core problem in the data centre: how to connect more and more servers in a cost effective and scaleable way.

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Rockley demos a silicon photonics switch prototype

Part 1: Rockley Photonics

Rockley Photonics has made a prototype switch to help grow the number of servers that can be linked in a data centre. The issue with interconnection networks inside a data centre is that they do not scale linearly as more servers are added.  

Dr. Andrew Rickman

“If you double the number of servers connected in a mega data centre, you don’t just double the complexity of the network, it goes up exponentially,” explains Andrew Rickman, co-founder, chairman and CEO at Rockley Photonics. “That is the problem we are addressing.”

By 2017 and 2018, it will still be possible to build the networks that large-scale data centre network operators require, says Rickman, but at an ever increasing cost and with a growing power consumption. “The basic principles of what they are doing needs to be rethought,” he says.

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