Project ESSenTIAL brings silicon photonics to commercial use
Since 2006, Europe has invested in facilitating industrial access to silicon photonics. A most notable initiative is ePIXfab, a collaboration between imec and CEA-LETI. ePIXfab has provided setup training, design kits, and access to multiproject wafer runs.
Still, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face steep hurdles if they want access to this advanced technology for their innovative products. This has mostly to do with the lack of a complete idea-to-product chain. Now, a new FP7 support action, called ESSenTIAL will expand the services of ePIXfab.
With the start of ESSenTIAL, IHP joint the ePIXfab umbrella to set up and provide first class silicon photonics foundry services to academia and industry. Apart from IHP, the project consortium comprises imec (Belgium) and CEA-LETI (France) providing foundry access, VTT (Finland) and Tyndall Institute (Ireland) for packaging and assembly, TNO (Netherlands) and CMC Microsystems (Canada) to extend commercial reach.
The project will expand the services that ePIXfab currently offers:
• First evaluation (feasibility) studies will be supported.
• A new cost-sharing fiber attachment and integration service will be set up, so that R&D engineers have more facilities to test their chips.
• The technology accessible with the ePIXfab multiproject wafers will include standardized modulators, thermo-optics and Ge photodiodes.
• There will be agreements with several fabs on wafer test and process benchmarking.
• ePIXfab will organize training for these new activities.
The project runs from October 2011 to September 2014 and has a budget of 1.65 million euro.
Contact:
Dr. Lars Zimmermann
Technology
Research group leader Si Photonics
IHP – Innovations for High Performance Microelectronics/Leibniz-Institut für innovative Mikroelektronik
Im Technologiepark 25
15236 Frankfurt (Oder)
Tel: +49 335 5625 407
Email: lzimmermann@ihp-microelectronics.com
Media Contact
All latest news from the category: Power and Electrical Engineering
This topic covers issues related to energy generation, conversion, transportation and consumption and how the industry is addressing the challenge of energy efficiency in general.
innovations-report provides in-depth and informative reports and articles on subjects ranging from wind energy, fuel cell technology, solar energy, geothermal energy, petroleum, gas, nuclear engineering, alternative energy and energy efficiency to fusion, hydrogen and superconductor technologies.
Newest articles
Recovering phosphorus from sewage sludge ash
Chemical and heat treatment of sewage sludge can recover phosphorus in a process that could help address the problem of diminishing supplies of phosphorus ores. Valuable supplies of phosphorus could…
Efficient, sustainable and cost-effective hybrid energy storage system for modern power grids
EU project HyFlow: Over three years of research, the consortium of the EU project HyFlow has successfully developed a highly efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective hybrid energy storage system (HESS) that…
After 25 years, researchers uncover genetic cause of rare neurological disease
Some families call it a trial of faith. Others just call it a curse. The progressive neurological disease known as spinocerebellar ataxia 4 (SCA4) is a rare condition, but its…
