Photonics Research Group Home
Ghent University Projects
About People Research Publications Education Services
 IMEC
intern

 
back to project list 
Horizon EuropePHORMIC

Horizon Europe: PHORMIC

Full Name: Wafer-scale platform for Photonic Programmable Multipurpose Integrated Circuits

Duration: 1/10/2022-30/3/2026

Partners:

  • IMEC
  • KTH
  • Tyndall National Institute
  • AMSTP AMICRA
  • III-V Labs
  • Sentea
  • VLC Photonics
  • NVIdia
  • XFab

Objective:

  • 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.

INTEC's Role:

  • Coordination of the project
  • Building Programmable Circuits
  • Micro-transfer printing of lasers

Project Web site: https://www.phormic.eu

People involved

Research topics involved

Publications in the framework of this project (10)

    International Journals

  1. Y. Li, E. Worsey, S. Bleiker, P. Edinger, M. Kulreshath, Q. Tang, A.Y. Takabayashi, N. Quack, P. Verheyen, W. Bogaerts, K.B. Gylfason, D. Pamunuwa, F. Niklaus, Integrated 4-terminal Single-Contact Nanoelectromechanical Relays Implemented in a Silicon-On-Insulator Foundry Process, Nanoscale, 15, p.17335-17341 doi:10.1039/D3NR03429A (2023)  Download this Publication (1.3MB).
  2. N. Quack, A.Y. Takabayashi, H. Sattari, P. Edinger, G. Jo, S.J. Bleiker, C. Errando-Herranz, K.B. Gylfason, F. Niklaus, U. Khan, P. Verheyen, A. Kumar Mallik, J.S. Lee, M. Jezzini, I. Zand, P. Morrissey, C. Antony, P. O'Brien, W. Bogaerts, Integrated Silicon Photonic MEMS , MicroSystems & Nanoengineering, 9, p.27  doi:10.1038/s41378-023-00498-z (2023).
      International Conferences

    1. W. Bogaerts, H. Deng, X. Chen, L. Van Iseghem, I. Zand, Y. Zhang, Y. Liu, A. Al Haffar, P. Edinger, G. Jo, A.Y. Takabayashi, C. Antony, A. Mallik Kumar, J. Zhang, E. Soltanian, P. Verheyen, J. Beeckman, G. Roelkens, N. Quack, F. Niklaus, K.B. Gylfason, U. Khan, Building general-purpose programmable photonic chips: opportunities and challenges, SPIE Photonics West - OPTO (invited), 12890, United States, p.12890-55 doi:10.1117/12.3009922 (2024).
    2. L. Bogaert, J. Zhang, P. Ossieur, G. Roelkens, Towards on-chip polarization management and isolation in O- and C-band integrated silicon photonics, Annual Symposium of the IEEE Photonics Society Benelux Chapter, Belgium, (2023).
    3. P. Edinger, A.Y. Takabayashi, C. Antony, P. Verheyen, U. Khan, W. Bogaerts, N. Quack, K.B. Gylfason, A MEMS tunable phase monitor with integrated photodiode read-out for silicon photonic circuits, Advanced Photonics Congress, p.ITu1A.2 (2 pages) doi:10.1364/IPRSN.2023.ITu1A.2 (2023)  Download this Publication (576KB).
    4. J. Zhang, L. Bogaert, M. Billet, D. Wang, B. Pan, S. Qin, E. Soltanian, S. Cuyvers, D. Maes, T. Vanackere, T. Vandekerckhove, S. Poelman, M. Kiewiet, I. Luntadila Lufungula, X. Guo, H. Li, J. De Witte, G. Lepage, P. Verheyen, J. Van Campenhout, B. Kuyken, G. Morthier, D. Van Thourhout, R. Baets, G. Roelkens, Photonic integrated circuits realized using micro-transfer printing, PIERS (invited), (2023).
    5. K.B. Gylfason, P. Edinger, G. Jo, C.P.V. Nguyen, A.Y. Takabayashi, C. Errando-Herranz, C. Antony, G. Talli, P. Verheyen, U. Khan, S.J. Bleiker, W. Bogaerts, N. Quack, F. Niklaus, Wafer-Level Vacuum-Sealed Low-Power Photonic MEMS for Programmable Silicon Photonic Circuits, IEEE International Conference on Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems (NEMS) (invited), South Korea, (2023).
    6. W. Bogaerts, K. Nagarjun, L. Van Iseghem, X. Chen, H. Deng, I. Zand, Y. Zhang, Y. Liu, A.Y. Takabayashi, H. Sattari, N. Quack, P. Edinger, G. Jo, S.J. Bleiker, K.B. Gylfason, F. Niklaus, A. Kumar Mallik, M. Jezzini, C. Antony, G. Talli, P. Verheyen, J. Beeckman, U. Khan, Scaling Programmable Silicon Photonic Circuits, SPIE Photonics West OPTO (invited), 12426, United States, p.12426-1 doi:10.1117/12.2647293 (2023)  Download this Publication (31.4MB).
    7. U. Khan, I. Zand, L. Van Iseghem, P. Edinger, G. Jo, S. J. Bleiker, A. Y. Takabayashi, C. Antony, M. Jezzini, G. Talli, H. Sattari, J. Lee, A. K. Mallik, P. Verheyen, C. Lerma Arce, M. Garcia, T. Jonuzi, E. Picavet, K. Nagarjun, J. Watte, N. Quack, F. Niklaus, K. De Buysser, J. Beekman, W. Bogaerts, Low power actuators for programmable photonic processors, SPIE Photonics West OPTO (invited), 12438, United States, p.124380K  doi:10.1117/12.2647371 (2023)  Download this Publication (31.6MB).
    8. K.B. Gylfason, P. Edinger, G. Jo, C.P.V. Nguyen, A.Y. Takabayashi, C. Errando-Herranz, C. Antony, G. Talli, P. Verheyen, U. Khan, S.J. Bleiker, W. Bogaerts, N. Quack, F. Niklaus, Wafer-Level Vacuum-Sealed Low-Power Photonic MEMS for High Density Silicon Photonic Circuits, IEEE Photonics Global Conference (invited), Sweden, (2022).