Contract analysis

I. INTRODUCTION AND IDENTIFICATION

1. My name is Dr. Jian-Wei Huang. I am over the age of twenty-one and am competent to make this Declaration. I have personal knowledge of the facts set forth herein, and if called as a witness, I could and would competently testify to these facts.

2. I am the Chief Technology Officer of Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. ("OWS" or "Optiwave"). My business address is 4810 Bayside Technology Parkway, Suite 300, Santa Clara, California 95054. I have held the position of Chief Technology Officer at OWS since January 2014.

3. I make this Declaration under penalty of perjury pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746, in support of Plaintiff Optiwave Semiconductor Corp.'s Opening Claim Construction Brief ("Opening Brief") filed concurrently herewith. The purpose of this Declaration is to provide testimony regarding: (a) the prosecution history of the four United States patents asserted in this action; (b) the intended scope of certain disputed claim

4. I have reviewed OWS's Opening Claim Construction Brief, as well as the patent specifications, claims, and prosecution histories of each of the four asserted patents. The statements I make in this Declaration are based on my personal knowledge, my review of the relevant documents, and my expertise in the field of silicon photonics, as described more fully below.

II. QUALIFICATIONS AND BACKGROUND A. Education.

5. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2002. My undergraduate thesis focused on the nonlinear optical properties of lithium niobate waveguides.

6. I received a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2005. My master's research involved the design and fabrication of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) rib waveguides for integrated optical circuit applications.

7. I received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009, with a concentration in integrated photonics. My doctoral dissertation, entitled "Monolithic Integration of High-Performance Silicon Photonic Devices for Optical Interconnect Applications," was supervised by Professor Elena Rostova in the Photonic microsystems Group. My doctoral research cente

8. Following the completion of my doctoral degree, I joined Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. in September 2009 as a Senior Photonics Design Engineer, shortly after OWS was co-founded in 2009 by Dr. Raymond Patel and Dr. Sarah Chen. In that role, I was responsible for the design, simulation, and layout of silicon photonic integrated circuits for optical transceiver applications.

9. In 2011, I was promoted to the position of Director of Photonics Engineering, where I led a team of engineers responsible for the development of OWS's first-generation silicon-photonics transceiver modules for data-center interconnect applications. I oversaw the development of OWS's foundational photonic integrated circuit platform, including waveguide structures, modulator designs, and grating coupler architectur

10. In January 2014, I was appointed Chief Technology Officer of OWS, a position I have held continuously since that date. As CTO, I am responsible for the overall technical direction of the company, including research and development strategy, product architecture, intellectual property development, and technology partnerships. I report directly to the Chief Executive Officer and serve as a member of OWS's executive

11. Over the course of my career, I have accumulated more than fifteen years of professional experience in the field of silicon-photonics integrated circuit design. My areas of technical expertise include, but are not limited to: silicon-on-insulator waveguide design and fabrication; high-speed electro-optic modulator architectures; germanium-on-silicon photodetector integration; coherent optical transceiver architec

12. I am a named inventor on fifty-three issued United States patents and twelve pending United States patent applications in the field of silicon photonics and related technologies. I am also a named inventor on twenty-one corresponding foreign patents and applications.

13. Importantly, I am a named inventor on all four of the United States patents asserted in this action: (a) U.S. Patent No. 10,234,847 ("the '847 Patent"), entitled "Multi-Channel Silicon Photonic Waveguide Multiplexer with Low Insertion Loss"; (b) U.S. Patent No. 10,891,193 ("the '193 Patent"), entitled "High-Bandwidth Coherent Optical Transceiver Integrated on Silicon Substrate"; (c) U.S. Patent No. 9,678,562 ("th

14. With respect to the '562 Patent, I wish to provide the following additional background. I am a co-inventor on the '562 Patent, along with Dr. Patricia Emerson and Mr. Karim Nassar, both of whom were employees of Solara Optics, Inc. ("Solara Optics") at the time of invention. The '562 Patent was filed on November 22, 2014, and issued on June 13, 2017. The '562 Patent was originally assigned to Solara Optics, Inc.

15. On June 15, 2018, OWS acquired the '562 Patent, along with eleven other United States patents and related foreign counterparts, from Solara Optics pursuant to an Asset Purchase Agreement dated June 15, 2018, for a total purchase price of $34.5 million. Solara Optics was subsequently dissolved in 2020. As a result of the Asset Purchase Agreement, OWS is the current owner by assignment of the '562 Patent and holds

16. I am the author or co-author of over forty peer-reviewed publications in leading journals and conference proceedings in the field of silicon photonics and optical communications, including publications in IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Optics Express (Optica Publishing Group, formerly the Optical Society of America), and conference proceedings of the Optical Fiber Communi

17. I have served on the program committees for the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) in 2018, 2020, and 2022, and for the IEEE Photonics Conference in 2019 and 2021. I have been invited to present keynote and plenary talks at multiple industry conferences on the topics of silicon-photonics transceiver technology and photonic integrated circuits for hyperscale data-center interconnects.

18. I am widely recognized within the silicon-photonics industry as a leader in coherent transceiver technology and photonic integrated circuit architecture for high-bandwidth data-center interconnect applications. OWS's technology platform, which I have helped design and develop over the past fifteen years, is widely regarded as one of the leading silicon-photonics platforms for hyperscale cloud-computing applicatio

19. Throughout the prosecution of each of the four asserted patents before the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO"), I worked directly with patent prosecution counsel at Cascade IP Advisors, LLC. The lead prosecution attorney responsible for all four patents was Dr. Martin Chu, a registered patent attorney and former photonics engineer. I collaborated closely with Dr. Chu and his team during every sign

20. For the '847 Patent, the '193 Patent, and the '015 Patent, my involvement in the prosecution process included: (a) preparing and providing detailed technical disclosures describing the inventions to Dr. Chu and his team; (b) reviewing and providing input on draft patent specifications and claims prior to filing; (c) reviewing and providing technical guidance on responses to office actions issued by the USPTO; (d)

21. For the '562 Patent, my involvement was somewhat different due to my role as a consultant to Solara Optics at the time. Specifically, I provided the original technical disclosure describing the micro-channel heat-sink invention to Solara Optics' patent counsel, who was also Dr. Martin Chu of Cascade IP Advisors, LLC. I participated in the initial drafting of the patent specification and claims and provided input

III. OVERVIEW OF THE ASSERTED PATENTS AND THEIR TECHNOLOGICAL CONTEXT A. The Field of Silicon Photonics for Data-Center Interconnects

22. Before addressing the specific patents and claim terms at issue, I believe it is helpful to provide a brief overview of the field of silicon photonics and the technological context in which the asserted patents were conceived and developed.

23. Silicon photonics is a technology that uses silicon — the same semiconductor material that forms the foundation of modern electronic integrated circuits — as an optical medium for guiding, modulating, detecting, and multiplexing light signals on a semiconductor chip. By leveraging the mature CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) fabrication infrastructure that has been developed over decades for electron

24. The primary commercial application of silicon photonics today is in optical transceiver modules for data-center interconnects. As the demand for bandwidth in hyperscale cloud-computing environments has grown exponentially — driven by applications such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and streaming media — the need for high-bandwidth, low-power, compact optical transceiver modules has

25. At the time of the earliest filing date among the asserted patents — November 22, 2014, the filing date of the '562 Patent — the silicon-photonics industry was undergoing a significant transition. The industry was moving away from traditional optical transceiver designs that used discrete optical components (such as separate lasers, modulators, and detectors assembled in a package) toward photonic integrated circ

26. The four asserted patents in this action each address a critical technical challenge that arose during this transition to highly integrated silicon-photonic transceivers: (a) The '847 Patent addresses the challenge of low insertion loss in waveguide multiplexing. As the number of wavelength channels increases in a wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transceiver, the optical loss introduced by the multiplexer b

27. These four inventions, taken together, represent key innovations that enabled the development of high-performance, fully integrated silicon-photonic coherent transceiver modules — precisely the type of advanced transceiver modules that are now critical for hyperscale data-center interconnects operating at 400G, 800G, and beyond. B. The '847 Patent — U.S. Patent No. 10,234,847

28. The '847 Patent is entitled "Multi-Channel Silicon Photonic Waveguide Multiplexer with Low Insertion Loss." It was filed on September 14, 2016, and issued on March 19, 2019. The original assignee is Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. I am a named inventor on this patent, along with Dr. Sarah Chen, Co-Founder and Vice President of Engineering at OWS.

29. The '847 Patent discloses and claims a novel waveguide multiplexer design that combines multiple optical signals of different wavelengths onto a single output waveguide with significantly reduced insertion loss compared to prior arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) designs. The key innovation lies in the multiplexer's architecture, which achieves broadband, low-loss wavelength combining through a specific arrangement

30. The '847 Patent is in the same patent family as the '562 Patent. Specifically, the '847 Patent is a continuation-in-part of the application that issued as the '562 Patent, sharing a common specification with the '562 Patent for certain foundational disclosures while adding new matter relating to the waveguide multiplexer innovations. C. The '193 Patent — U.S. Patent No. 10,891,193

31. The '193 Patent is entitled "High-Bandwidth Coherent Optical Transceiver Integrated on Silicon Substrate." It was filed on April 7, 2017, and issued on January 12, 2021. The original assignee is Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. I am a named inventor on this patent, along with Dr. Michael Faraday Okonkwo and Dr. Sarah Chen.

32. The '193 Patent claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/499,117, filed April 7, 2017. This provisional application is shared with the '015 Patent, as described below.

33. The '193 Patent discloses and claims a coherent optical transceiver architecture that integrates modulator, detector, and signal-processing functions on a single silicon substrate. The transceiver achieves high bandwidth suitable for 400G and beyond data rates through novel circuit topologies that can be fabricated using standard CMOS-compatible processes. The claimed architecture includes a coherent detection mo

34. The '562 Patent is entitled "Method for Thermal Management of Photonic Integrated Circuits Using Embedded Micro-Channel Heat Sinks." It was filed on November 22, 2014, and issued on June 13, 2017. As discussed above, the '562 Patent was originally assigned to Solara Optics, Inc. and is currently assigned to OWS pursuant to the Asset Purchase Agreement dated June 15, 2018.

35. I am a co-inventor on the '562 Patent, along with Dr. Patricia Emerson and Mr. Karim Nassar. The '562 Patent is in the same patent family as the '847 Patent, as described above.

36. The '562 Patent discloses and claims a method of embedding micro-channel heat sinks within photonic integrated circuits to manage thermal dissipation in densely integrated devices. The embedded micro-channel structures allow for efficient, localized heat removal from active photonic components without increasing the overall device footprint. The specification describes several embodiments of the micro-channel hea

37. The '015 Patent is entitled "Polarization-Diverse Grating Coupler for Silicon Photonic Transceivers." It was filed on August 30, 2019, and issued on August 2, 2022. The original assignee is Optiwave Semiconductor Corp. I am a named inventor on this patent, along with Dr. Ananya Krishnamurthy and Dr. Michael Faraday Okonkwo.

38. The '015 Patent claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/499,117, filed April 7, 2017 — the same provisional application to which the '193 Patent claims priority. The shared priority date and common provisional disclosure demonstrate that the coherent transceiver architecture of the '193 Patent and the polarization-diverse grating coupler of the '015 Patent were conceived as complementary innovation

39. The '015 Patent discloses and claims a grating coupler design that efficiently couples light of two orthogonal polarization states (commonly referred to as TE and TM polarization modes) into silicon waveguides, enabling polarization diversity in transceiver architectures. The specification describes multiple embodiments for achieving polarization diversity, including two-dimensional grating structures, one-dimens

IV. STATE OF THE ART AT THE TIME OF EACH PATENT FILING A. State of the Art at the Time of the '562 Patent Filing (November 2014)

40. At the time the '562 Patent was filed on November 22, 2014, thermal management in photonic integrated circuits was widely recognized as a critical challenge facing the silicon-photonics industry. As PICs became more densely integrated — incorporating more active components such as modulators, tunable filters, and heater elements on a single chip — the localized heat generated by these components created thermal "

41. The existing approaches to thermal management in PICs at the time of filing relied primarily on bulk heat-spreading solutions or thermoelectric coolers (TECs) that were external to the photonic circuit itself. Bulk heat spreaders — typically copper or aluminum blocks attached to the bottom of the PIC package — provided only coarse-grained thermal management and were unable to address localized hot spots within th

42. The concept of embedding micro-channel structures directly within the PIC substrate for localized thermal management was not well developed at the time of the '562 Patent's filing. Prior approaches to micro-channel cooling existed in the broader field of electronic integrated circuits (dating back to the seminal work of Tuckerman and Pease at Stanford in 1981), but these approaches had not been successfully adapt

43. The '562 Patent addressed a long-felt need in the silicon-photonics industry for an effective thermal management solution that could be integrated directly into the PIC substrate without increasing the device footprint or compromising optical performance. The embedded micro-channel heat-sink architecture disclosed in the '562 Patent provided a means for targeted, localized heat removal from the most thermally cri

44. A person of ordinary skill in the art ("POSITA") at the time of the '562 Patent's filing would have been a person with at least a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering, photonics, or a closely related field, and at least three years of professional experience in the design, fabrication, or testing of silicon-photonic integrated circuits. This definition is consistent with the POSITA definition propos

45. At the time the '847 Patent was filed on September 14, 2016, arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) were the predominant technology for wavelength-division multiplexing in silicon photonics. AWGs use an array of waveguides with precisely controlled path-length differences to create constructive interference at specific output ports for specific wavelengths, enabling the combining (multiplexing) or separating (demultip

46. The '847 Patent's innovation was a novel waveguide multiplexer architecture that achieved significantly lower insertion loss than conventional AWGs while maintaining a compact form factor suitable for photonic integrated circuit applications. The claimed waveguide multiplexer was not limited to any particular multiplexing architecture; rather, the patent disclosed a set of design principles and structural feature

47. Other researchers in the field had explored silicon photonic wavelength multiplexers around this time. Notably, Takahashi et al. published an article entitled "Dense WDM Silicon Photonic MUX Using Higher-Order Microring Resonators" in IEEE Photonics Technology Letters in March 2014, which described a dense WDM silicon photonic multiplexer based on an AWG architecture with a slab coupler. However, Takahashi's appr

48. At the time the '193 Patent was filed on April 7, 2017, coherent optical transceivers were emerging as an essential technology for achieving data rates of 400G and beyond in data-center interconnect applications. Coherent modulation formats, such as DP-QPSK (dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying) and DP-16QAM (dual-polarization 16-state quadrature amplitude modulation), offered significantly higher spec

49. Prior coherent transceiver designs relied on hybrid integration approaches, in which III-V semiconductor dies (such as indium phosphide-based lasers, modulators, and photodetectors) were physically bonded to a silicon photonic die using techniques such as flip-chip bonding or micro-transfer printing. While hybrid integration leveraged the superior optical gain properties of III-V semiconductors, it introduced sig

50. The '193 Patent achieved what I describe as "monolithic-like" integration — a level of integration that approached the simplicity and reliability of monolithic fabrication — through novel circuit topologies that could be implemented using standard CMOS-compatible fabrication processes. The '193 Patent's architecture enabled the integration of coherent transceiver functions on a single silicon substrate while achi

51. A POSITA at the time of the '193 Patent's filing would have understood the phrase "integrated on a silicon substrate" to refer to any fabrication approach in which the functional components of the transceiver are formed on or bonded to a silicon-based wafer, using semiconductor fabrication processes. This understanding was consistent with the way the phrase was used throughout the silicon-photonics industry at th

52. At the time the '015 Patent was filed on August 30, 2019, grating couplers were a standard and widely used method for coupling light between optical fibers and silicon waveguides in photonic integrated circuits. Grating couplers offer the advantage of enabling vertical or near-vertical coupling of light from a fiber into a planar waveguide, which simplifies packaging and testing compared to edge-coupling approach

53. Two-dimensional (2D) grating couplers had been proposed in the academic literature as a potential solution for achieving polarization diversity. A 2D grating coupler uses a grating pattern that is periodic in two dimensions, allowing it to couple TE-polarized light into one output waveguide and TM-polarized light into a different output waveguide. However, prior 2D grating coupler designs suffered from low coupli

54. The '015 Patent's innovation was a polarization-diverse grating coupler that could efficiently couple both TE and TM polarization modes with high efficiency across a broad wavelength range suitable for WDM transceiver applications. The patent disclosed multiple structural approaches for achieving polarization diversity, as described in paragraph 39 above. The "two-dimensional sub-wavelength grating" limitation re

V. PROSECUTION HISTORY AND INTENDED SCOPE OF DISPUTED CLAIM TERMS

55. I turn now to the four disputed claim terms identified in the parties' Joint Claim Construction and Prehearing Statement. For each term, I provide my testimony regarding the intended scope of the term as understood by me as an inventor, the relevant prosecution history, and the understanding that a POSITA would have had of the term at the time of filing. A. "Waveguide Multiplexer" ('847 Patent, Claim 1)