European partners launch InPulse photonic integrated circuit (PIC) pilot line
The four-year project InPulse kicked off in Eindhoven, Netherlands on 23 January 2019 wherein 16 European partners plan to reduce barriers and accelerate development of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) based in indium phosphide (InP). It will offer companies direct access to state-of-the-art manufacturing and enable the development of products for a wide range of new markets. It is backed by 14 million Euros ($16 million dollars) of funding from the European Commission and the pilot line will enable innovators to develop products fast so they can focus on their products rather than the technologically complex task of fabrication.
Currently there are only a handful of companies that can develop PIC-enabled products. They do this with their own in-house fabs (production lines), and a consequence is that start-ups with promising ideas have trouble entering the market. The InPulse manufacturing pilot line therefore enables new entrants to take their concepts from prototype to pilot production on industry tools and processes. InPulse connects the design process to manufacturing, testing and packaging to streamline the development cycle for businesses who do not own a fabrication plant or have production knowledge.
The project partners of InPulse will create manufacturing-grade process design kits that will be the automated intermediary between the design, production and testing. The separation of design and fabrication process know-how enables newcomers to avoid the prohibitive investment overheads in PIC fabrication technology.
InPulse will use closely aligned methods that scale in volume and that focus on accelerating the design cycle, creating more accurate and predictable design tools, manufacturing and high-throughput testing. The project builds on the pioneering work of the Joint European Platform for Photonic Integration of Components and Circuits (JePPIX.eu), which is already offering PIC prototyping services. InPulse enables the transition to manufacturing.
The first phase of work will focus on making the technology more robust and on putting in place the business processes for accelerated development programs. In the second stage of the project some thirty new products will be developed to demonstrate the pilot line capability. For this phase the project consortium is looking for additional companies and designers that want to take their ideas and designs to pre-production.
The project partners of InPulse are the Eindhoven University of Technology, AMIRES, Aarhus University, Bright Photonics, European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC), ficonTEC Service, Fraunhofer HHI, III-V Lab, Mellanox Technologies, Photon Design, Synopsys, Smart Photonics, Technobis Fibre Technologies, Tyndall National Institute, VLC Photonics and VPIphotonics.
The project is supported by the European Commission, the Photonics21 Public Private Partnership (PPP), and the PhotonDelta integrated photonics eco-system. InPulse builds on JePPIX technology. The European Commission has defined photonics as one of the six key enabling technologies of Europe.
SOURCE: Eindhoven University of Technology; https://www.tue.nl/en/news/news-overview/25-01-2019-pilot-line-project-lnpulse-launches-to-give-europe-edge-in-integrated-photonics/
Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)
Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.