LIGENTEC announces role in European photonixFAB initiative
LIGENTEC, a supplier of high-performance, low loss, silicon nitride photonic integrated circuits (PICs) has announced it is a key partner in the European initiative “photonixFAB” to prepare for an industrial silicon photonics value chain.
PICs are ready to repeat the success of electronic integrated circuits (ICs) and are expected to play a key role in tomorrow’s infrastructure in communication, advanced and quantum computing, sensing and transportation.
For Europe, to be part of this success story and gain sovereignty in this strategic technology sector, it is key to establish an agile and resilient silicon photonics supply chain with leading performance, enabling quick learning cycles to rapidly transfer technologies from research to industry.
The newly launched pilot line initiative photonixFAB seeks to establish a path towards a European photonics value chain and initial industrial manufacturing capabilities. The consortium covers the main part of the silicon photonics value chain, from design automation via foundry service all the way to end users and includes two major European research institutes.
“Europe has a leading edge in the research of PICs,” states LIGENTEC CEO Thomas Hessler. “photonixFAB is the next necessary step to turn this technology lead into a world leading industry, contributing to the strategic autonomy of Europe.”
Within photonixFAB, LIGENTEC will focus on the advancement of its low loss Silicon Nitride PIC platform, originally developed at EPFL in Switzerland, recently installed at X-FAB and now commercially accessible as 200mm wafer technology. A key goal of the project and LIGENTEC’s collaboration with its strategic partner X-FAB is an improved offering for agile prototyping with a seamless transfer to volume production.
Further, LIGENTEC will work within the consortium on the integration of lasers, high speed modulators and detectors, by adding III-V material based active devices and electro-optical materials like Lithium Niobate to the low loss SiN PIC platform. The project is being supported by the Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking (KDT JU), with funding from the EU and the national authorities. The combination of this funding and the investments being directly made by each of the consortium members comes to a total of €48 million.
