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Photonic Integrated Circuit design training at PIW2018
In: Events, Trainings 29 Nov 2017

After last year’s successful edition, a new Photonic Integrated Circuit design training will be held again in the facilities of VLC Photonics in Valencia (Spain) from Wednesday 17th to Friday 19th of January 2018, co-located with the 2nd Photonic Integration Week.

This training is oriented to companies or institutions that want to get started in photonic circuit design, or for those that already having a basic knowledge and want to improve their design skills.

Moreover, the EUIMWP (European Network for High Performance Integrated Microwave Photonics) COST Action (CA 16220) will offer a fixed grant (amount still to be confirmed) to trainees coming from COST countries and Near Neighbour Countries. These grants aim to cover travel, accommodation and diet expenses of trainees during the attendance to the PIC design course. Please note that the grants will be given in a first come first served basis, and that the final deadline to register is Friday 12/01/18.

Attendees will also have the chance to fabricate the designs they have done or initiated during the training at an upcoming multi-project wafer run in the silicon nitride platform of the CNM foundry.

The agenda of the training will be as follows:

If you want to join this training, please contact us before Friday 12/01/18 at info(at)vlcphotonics.com and you will get the registration form and all training details and logistic information.

This training will be the end of an exciting week started on Monday and Tuesday with the 2nd edition of the Photonic Integration Week, PIW2018, that will combine industrial presentations, business to business meetings, scientific and technical speakers and training activities. The event will be held at the Technical University of Valencia (UPV), in Spain.

The PIW2018 will start with two Workshops under the framework of the project H2020 PICs4All (Photonic Integration Circuits Accessible to Everyone) and the Spanish Network of Excellence PIC4TB (Photonic Integration Circuits for Telecommunications and Bio Sciences). Industrial keynote speakers will provide the commercial perspective of use of photonic integration technologies at different positions of the supply chain, from component manufacturers, system integrators and end users of these technologies. Scientific invited speakers will present their latest achievements and prospects of use of these technologies in research and development, and caveats for the design aimed at Bio and Telecom applications will be given in 4 master lessons by the members of the PIC4TB network.

If you want more information about any of these events contact us at info(at)vlcphotonics.com

New photonic integration platform on silicon nitride
In: News, Press Releases 03 Sep 2017

LIGENTEC, a leading provider of manufacturing foundry services in silicon nitride, and VLCPhotonics, a pioneer design house offering services for photonic circuit development, have collaborated to offer a generic platform for the prototyping and production of photonic integrated circuits.

LIGENTEC has matured a proprietary silicon nitride process that is able to achieve ultra-low propagation losses, with several world record devices being published in the last years. As Michael Zervas, CEO of LIGENTEC, explains: “Our process is able to deposit thick film silicon nitride, from 100 nm to 2500 nm, overcoming the challenge of crack formation due to stress in the material”. The process can also scale up to production volumes using 8” wafers and stepper lithography.

The open access platform provides a generic fabrication process for designing and manufacturing photonic integrated circuits, to be used in many different applications. Targeting mainly the most common communications wavelengths, the platform is also customizable for lower visible wavelengths, suitable for biophotonic and sensing applications. The main markets addressed are optical telecom and datacom, supercontinuum generation, microwave photonics and quantum optics.


Silicon nitride chip fabricated at Ligentec with photonic circuit structures designed by VLCPhotonics

Fabrication is organized through dedicated full-wafer runs or shared multi-project wafer runs, which are periodically scheduled three times a year. Users can subscribe to these runs and prepare their designs using the standardized rules and functional building blocks provided by the foundry and the design house, which have also been implemented under a Process Design Kit (PDK) for two different design software tools, OptoDesigner by PhoeniX Software and IPKISS by Luceda
Photonics.

VLC Photonics will also be offering full design or design support for inexperienced users, and also chip characterization and test services once fabrication has been performed. “We have realized that most of the times, end users also require some level of design or test assistance, to speed their developments and reduce the risk when targeting complex projects”, clarifies Iñigo Artundo, CEO of VLC Photonics. More information on the technical details and commercial availability of these services can be found at www.ligentec.com.

LIGENTEC is offering wafer scale fabrication of silicon nitride photonic integrated circuits (PIC) for applications in telecom/datacom, quantum optics, optical (bio-)sensing. The propriatory low loss waveguide technology together with the low bending losses that thick film nitride enables paves the way to new integrated applications. Thick silicon nitride chips can thus scale down to four times in cost compared to thin film silicon nitride. The combination of cost scaling and low loss is resulting in more cost-effective solutions.

VLC Photonics at a SECPhO webinar PICs in biochemical food analysis
In: Events 26 Jul 2017

Once again our colleague Iñigo Artundo, CEO of VLC Photonics, was invited by the Southern European Cluster in Photonics and Optics (SECPhO) to give a talk on photonic integration. This time the subject of the webinar was ‘New applications of artificial vision technology on the food sector’ and Iñigo based his speech on two subjects directly related to this topic: Spectroscopy for food analysis, and what the European H2020 project PIX4Life can do for your company.

The H2020 PIX4Life project ambition is to become the world’s premier open access pilot line for PIC´s targeting life science applications in the visible range. If you want to know more about this project and the scheduled MPW runs do not hesitate to visit the project webpage at www.pix4life.eu.

If you want to watch the full presentation here:

VLC Photonics in Electro Optics magazine 10th October 2016
In: Media Appearances, News 08 Mar 2017

Which challenges companies face when doing business with photonic integration? Iñigo Artundo shared his knowledge about this topic in the latest issue of Electro Optics magazine. Electro Optics is Europe’s original photonics title and resource for anyone involved and interested in the photonics industry. It is released 10 times a year alongside with monthly newsletter.

PIC International and awards, VLC nominated 6 feb 2017
In: News 08 Mar 2017

Like last year, the PIC International conference will take place in Brussels, Belgium, this time from 6-7th March at the Sheraton Airport hotel. The program includes technology and market talks from industry leading experts in the field of photonic integration, and it’s a great place to network and get updated on the latest trends.
Additionally this year, to recognize and highlight key industry achievements in advancing photonic integration through platform development, manufacturing, design, packaging and device characterization, the organizers have recently announced its PIC Awards programme.

With voting taking place online and presentations made at the PIC International 2017 networking dinner on the evening of March 7th in Brussels, the awards put the spotlight on innovation.

Nominations were open to all companies, individuals and organisations within the PIC community, and after the nomination period, VLC Photonics was selected for the “Design ad Packaging” category, so we kindly ask you to check also the other nominees and give us your support! VOTE HERE

 

Photonics West 2017 23rd January 17
In: News 08 Mar 2017

 

Next week, one of the largest optics and photonics exhibitions of the world is once again taking place in San Francisco. From Jan 28th to Feb 2nd, SPIE Photonics West will be organized at the Moscone center. Besides the exhibition itself, this event comprises of conferences and courses covering many topics in the field.

VLC Photonics CEO Iñigo Artundo and Bernardo Gargallo will be exhibiting at booth number 4468 on the North Hall. Pass by to learn about latest designs, available foundries and MPW runs, or packaging providers. If you want to arrange a meeting there with them, just write an email to inigo.artundo(at)vlcphotonics.com?subject=Meeting%20at%20Photonics%20West

Some photonic integration related sessions and activities not to be missed are:

 

 

 

Photonic Integration Week 2nd Jan 2017
In: Events, News, Trainings 08 Mar 2017

We are honoured to sponsor the very first Photonic Integration Week which will take place from 16th to 20th of January 2017 in our hometown Valencia, Spain. For 5 days, the Technical University of Valencia will host various academic and industrial presentations, business to business meetings, and training activities.
The week will begin with several talks under the framework of  the project H2020 PICs4All (Photonic Integration Circuits Accessible to Everyone) and the Spanish Network of Excellence PIC4TB (Photonic Integration Circuits for Telecommunications and Bio Sciences). In the remaining two and a half days, VLC Photonics will provide a course on the design of Photonic Integrated Circuits, contact us if you would like to assist to the training.

Integrated quantum optics 13 Oct 2016
In: News 08 Mar 2017

Quantum technologies are revolutionizing many applications, like security, sensing, metrology or computing. Photonic integration can be applied to quantum optic systems to improve their performance and reliability, while lowering their cost and size, and scaling up their complexity.

VLC Photonics has been actively contributing to this field for many years. Recent research activities of VLC Photonics founders David Domenech, Pascual Muñoz and José Capmany were focused on the photonic integration of random number generators. Their findings, together with other researchers from ICFO and CNR, are summarized in an article recently published in the third volume of scientific journal Optica:

Carlos Abellan, Waldimar Amaya, David Domenech, Pascual Muñoz, Jose Capmany, Stefano Longhi, Morgan W. Mitchell, and Valerio Pruneri, “Quantum entropy source on an InP photonic integrated circuit for random number generation,” Optica 3, 989-994 (2016) 

If you are intersted in learning about this emerging field, there will be soon a Presidency event on Quantum Technologies, on the 16-17th Feb in Malta, were Iñigo Artundo from VLC will participate in a round table and also on the QuantERA proposers event.

Additionally, VLC Photonics contributions in quantum optics were acknowledged by the European Commission, when its CEO Iñigo Artundo was selected to be one of the members of the Expert Group on Quantum Optics Flagship, a High Level Steering Committee focused on transparent cooperation together with academic and industrial stakeholders and Member states to help defining the upcoming program (link).

EPIC meeting on PIC testing 2017
In: News 08 Mar 2017

The European Photonics Industry Consortium is organizing a meeting on Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) testing, on the 16th and 17th February 2017 in Pisa, Italy.

Primary scope of the event is to discuss and list requirements, differentiating also where, how, and what has to be tested in the whole PICs manufacturing chain. At wafer level another important differentiation is given by the coupling methods.

Like packaging, testing starts at design level and ends with automated test machines. The discussion will range from probing techniques to handling and test procedures and also touch briefly on the needs and requirements for dedicated modular instrumentation.

Our characterization engineer Rocio Baños will be attending the event, and giving a presentation on “Challenges for PIC characterization” on Friday 17th at 12:20. You can check the progam and register in the following link: EPIC meeting on PIC testing 2017.

 

VLC Photonics at SECPhO webinar on Optical Communications
In: Events 28 Feb 2017

Iñigo Artundo, CEO of VLC Photonics, presented one of the conferences held last 22nd of February in the webinar on Optical Communications organized by the Southern European Cluster in Photonics and Optics (SECPhO). This cluster aims to bring together companies, technology centres and research groups in the photonics and optics sector.

The webinar on optical communications counted with the presence of Iñigo Artundo, who described the photonic integrated circuit technology as the future of optical communications. You can still watch this webinar in Spanish here.