Summary
PHORMIC establishes a European platform for next-generation programmable photonic chips with a low adoption threshold for product developers in diverse application domains. The PHORMIC platform consists of three tiers.
The first tier is a 200 mm wafer-scale fabrication flow that augments an established world-class silicon photonics platform with transfer-printed III-V optical amplifiers and compact low-power MEMS actuators. The devices are encapsulated in wafer-scale hermetically sealed cavities that will also be used for on-chip gas cells to calibrate the tunable lasers built in PHORMIC. The combination of high-speed silicon photonics, broadband optical gain and low-power MEMS tuners is a true enabler for new applications. The process flow will be supported by a design kit for building complex photonic circuits.
The second tier supplements the photonic chips with modular packaging processes and driver electronics (including high-speed drivers), and the packaging and connectivity logic are integrated in the design kit. This provides a low-threshold entry point for building complex photonic chip-based systems with active control and programmability.
The third tier builds on this to create a multipurpose programmable photonic processor, which can control the flow of light in an analogue way through a software interface. This chip, together with its electronics and programming framework, forms a true “photonics development kit”. This enables an off-the-shelf use model like that of electronic FPGAs, reducing prototyping time for new concepts from >1 year to weeks.
The PHORMIC consortium has all expertise to establish a full supply chain, including a migration path to a European industrial 200 mm foundry. The application potential of the three tiers of the platform is validated through three demonstrators, in datacenter communication, sensing and mm-wave wireless beamforming. For each case, a custom-designed chip will be compared to the multipurpose photonic processor.
The first tier is a 200 mm wafer-scale fabrication flow that augments an established world-class silicon photonics platform with transfer-printed III-V optical amplifiers and compact low-power MEMS actuators. The devices are encapsulated in wafer-scale hermetically sealed cavities that will also be used for on-chip gas cells to calibrate the tunable lasers built in PHORMIC. The combination of high-speed silicon photonics, broadband optical gain and low-power MEMS tuners is a true enabler for new applications. The process flow will be supported by a design kit for building complex photonic circuits.
The second tier supplements the photonic chips with modular packaging processes and driver electronics (including high-speed drivers), and the packaging and connectivity logic are integrated in the design kit. This provides a low-threshold entry point for building complex photonic chip-based systems with active control and programmability.
The third tier builds on this to create a multipurpose programmable photonic processor, which can control the flow of light in an analogue way through a software interface. This chip, together with its electronics and programming framework, forms a true “photonics development kit”. This enables an off-the-shelf use model like that of electronic FPGAs, reducing prototyping time for new concepts from >1 year to weeks.
The PHORMIC consortium has all expertise to establish a full supply chain, including a migration path to a European industrial 200 mm foundry. The application potential of the three tiers of the platform is validated through three demonstrators, in datacenter communication, sensing and mm-wave wireless beamforming. For each case, a custom-designed chip will be compared to the multipurpose photonic processor.
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More information & hyperlinks
| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101070332 |
| Start date: | 01-10-2022 |
| End date: | 30-09-2026 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | 4 994 184,75 Euro - 4 994 184,00 Euro |
Cordis data
Original description
PHORMIC establishes a European platform for next-generation programmable photonic chips with a low adoption threshold for product developers in diverse application domains. The PHORMIC platform consists of three tiers.The first tier is a 200 mm wafer-scale fabrication flow that augments an established world-class silicon photonics platform with transfer-printed III-V optical amplifiers, electro-optic materials in the form of molecular glasses, and compact low-power MEMS actuators. The devices are encapsulated in wafer-scale hermetically sealed cavities that will also be used for on-chip gas cells to calibrate the tunable lasers built in PHORMIC. The combination of high-speed silicon photonics, Pockels-based modulators, broadband optical gain and low-power MEMS tuners is a true enabler for new applications. The process flow will be supported by a design kit for building complex photonic circuits.
The second tier supplements the photonic chips with modular packaging processes and driver electronics (including high-speed drivers), and the packaging and connectivity logic are integrated in the design kit. This provides a low-threshold entry point for building complex photonic chip-based systems with active control and programmability.
The third tier builds on this to create a multipurpose programmable photonic processor, which can control the flow of light in an analogue way through a software interface. This chip, together with its electronics and programming framework, forms a true “photonics development kit”. This enables an off-the-shelf use model like that of electronic FPGAs, reducing prototyping time for new concepts from >1 year to weeks.
The PHORMIC consortium has all expertise to establish a full supply chain, including a migration path to a European industrial 200 mm foundry. The application potential of the three tiers of the platform is validated through three demonstrators, in datacenter communication, sensing and mm-wave wireless beamforming. For each case, a custom-designed chip will be compared to the multipurpose photonic processor.
Status
SIGNEDCall topic
HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01-07Update Date
09-02-2023
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Organisations
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| INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICRO-ELECTRONICA CENTRUM VZW (Coördinator)
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| ASM AMICRA MICROTECHNOLOGIES GMBH
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| III-V LAB
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| KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN
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| LATVIJAS UNIVERSITATES CIETVIELU FIZIKAS INSTITUTS
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| MELLANOX TECHNOLOGIES LTD - MLNX (MLNX)
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| SENTEA
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| UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK - NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, CORK
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| VLC PHOTONICS SL
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| X-FAB GLOBAL SERVICES GMBH
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| X-FAB MEMS FOUNDRY GmbH (XMF)