PIC Awards Winners Announced at PIC International Conference
The winners at the 2nd PIC Awards ceremony are announced after the first day of PIC International Conference across seven categories
Sales of PICs are soaring, with their deployment helping to boost the capacity of networks and data centres. In its second year, the PIC Awards recognised and highlighted key industry achievements in advancing photonic integration through platform development, manufacturing, design, packaging and device characterisation.
Voted for by the industry, through the PIC Magazine and PIC Awards digital portals, the awards ceremony honoured and celebrated leading companies and individuals from across the integrated photonics industry over 7 categories. Jose Pozo, Director of Technology and Innovation for EPIC hosted the evening for the second year running.
The evening began with the PIC Platforms Award. This award recognises advances in the development and application of key materials systems driving today's photonic integrated circuits and providing a stepping stone to future devices. The winner was the Swiss based company, LiGenTec, which provides specialist services in silicon nitride thickness above 600nm in applications for integrated quantum photonics, high Q-filters, pulse generation, spectroscopy, bio-sensing and microwave photonics. The award was accepted by Michael Geiselmann, the company's co-founder and CTO.
The Advances in PIC Manufacturing Award followed and this category celebrated the success stories for companies offering an evolution in PIC production to bring a new generation of devices into the market. Dutch based company LioniX International secured the award for providing services from initial prototype design to high-volume manufacturing of products, chips and assemblies, with their Chief Commercial Officer, Arne Leinse collecting the trophy.
The Advances in Photonics Integration Award recognises companies offering innovative approaches to new and commercially important PIC technology platforms, PIC packing, and PIC design, which results in including more features into a chip and raising the bar to the next level. This year, the winner was the US start-up Ayar Labs for their techniques in miniaturising fibre optic transceivers and making them in standard silicon chips, replacing copper interconnects and bringing the super-high bandwidths and low energy use of optical communications inside computers. Co-Founder, President and Chief Scientist of Ayar Labs, Mark Wade accepted the award.
New for 2018, the PIC Hero Award recognises a company or entity advancing the "˜state-of-the-art' for improving PIC performance on a commercial scale. Techniques such as the integration of electronics with photonics, large scale integration, 100, 400, 800G performance for high speed, super low power, super functionality, super small size and miniaturisation are considered within this category. This year, BRIGHT Photonics secured the award for its free and open source PIC design tool, "˜NAZCA' and its CEO Ronald Broeke, collected the trophy.
Also newly introduced for 2018 is the PIC Technologist Award, which recognises experts in translating PIC technologies towards commercial reality and product qualification including filing IP/patents and publications through papers and talks. William Ring, Senior VP of POET Technologies won and collected the first of the three individual awards handed out on the night for his work encompassing both III-V devices and dielectric technology.
The penultimate award for PIC Entrepreneur and Business Leader was won and collected by Lightwave Logic CEO and PIC International Conference Chair, Michael Lebby, for his work as a leader in driving new frontiers with start-up companies and implementing internal technological programs within large corporations.
To close the evening, Professor Roel Baets achieved the Lifetime PIC Achievement Award in recognition of outstanding service to the sector and contribution to the manufacture of commercial, packaged chips delivering ground-breaking performance as well as pioneering photonic integration to help make PICs a reality.
Further details of the PIC Awards can be found at https://picawards.net/winners
PIC International is an annual conference with over 30 presentations providing comprehensive coverage of all key sectors across the photonic integrated circuits value chain as well as including a dedicated exhibition for all the leading players and decision makers across the industry.
Congratulations to all the shortlisted companies and to the winners of 2018.
