The markets for photonic integrated circuits in 2030

What will be the leading markets for photonic integrated circuits (PICs) by the decade's end? And what are the challenges facing the PIC industry?

SiLC Technologies' Lidar PIC. Source: SiLC Technologies.

A panel session at the recent PIC Summit Europe event held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, looked at what would be the markets for photonic integrated circuits by 2030.

The market for PICs is dominated by datacom and telecom. However, emerging applications include medical and wearable devices, optical computing, autonomous vehicles, and sensing applications for the oil, gas, water, and agriculture industries.

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Scintil Photonics looks to add light to silicon

It's the second day of Christmastide and Sylvie Menezo is working: “I enjoyed the last two days and now I'm back at work.” 

But then it should not be surprising given how Menezo is both the CEO and CTO of Scintil Photonics, the French start-up that secured €4.4 million in first-round funding last year.

Sylvia Menezo, Scintil Photonics

Origins 

Scintil Photonics’ expertise is in the design of silicon photonics circuits and the addition of active III-V materials - for lasing, gain and modulation - to a silicon substrate.  

The start-up is using its funding to move its technology from the lab to production, working with an unnamed commercial foundry. The firm is also growing its staff, from eight to a dozen by the year-end. 

Menezo worked previously at CEA-Leti, a French technology research institute, where her roles included heading the silicon photonics lab and business development.

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ECOC 2015: Reflections

Gazettabyte asked industry executives what trends and highlights they noted at the recent European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) event, held in Valencia. Here are three views.

Valery Tolstikhin, head of a design consultancy, Intengent

ECOC was a big show and included a number of satellite events, such as the 6^th European Forum on Photonic Integration, the 3^rd Optical Interconnect in Data Center Symposium and Market Focus, all of which I attended. So, lots of information to digest. 

My focus was mainly on data centre optical interconnects and photonic integration.

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OneChip Photonics targets the data centre with its PICs

OneChip Photonics is developing integrated optical components for the IEEE 40GBASE-LR4 and 100GBASE-LR4 interface standards.

The company believes its photonic integrated circuits (PICs) will more than halve the cost of the 40 and 100 Gigabit 10km-reach interfaces, enough for LR4 to cost-competitively address shorter reach applications in the data centre.

"I think we can cut the price [of LR4 modules] by half or better”

Andy Weirich, OneChip Photonics

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OFC/NFOEC 2012 industry reflections - Part 1

The recent OFC/NFOEC show, held in Los Angeles, had a strong vendor presence. Gazettabyte spoke with Infinera's Dave Welch, chief strategy officer and executive vice president, about his impressions of the show, capacity challenges facing the industry, and the importance of the company's photonic integrated circuit technology in light of recent competitor announcements.

OFC/NFOEC reflections: Part 1 

"I need as much fibre capacity as I can get, but I also need reach" 

Dave Welch, Infinera

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Terabit Consortium embraces OFDM

A project to develop optical networks using terabit light paths has been announced by a consortium of Israeli companies and universities. The Tera Santa Consortium will spend 3-5 years developing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based terabit optical networking equipment.

“This project is very challenging and very important”

Shai Stein, Tera Santa Consortium

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u2t Photonics: Adapting to a changing marketplace

Jens Fiedler, vice president sales and marketing (left), and CEO Andreas Umbach.

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