EuroPIC Objectives

EuroPIC is a broadly based project, aiming to synthesise many of the functional components in the manufacturing chain. The project aims:

• To bring the application of photonic integrated micro-systems with a high added value in advanced products within reach for a broad class of SMEs by reducing the entrance costs dramatically by more than one order of magnitude.

• To enable the emergence of a new field of research in circuit-based photonic devices with ever increasing complexity and performance. To demonstrate this, a number of target application PICs will be produced and some of these will constitute “hero” experiments, with a record combination of complexity and performance realized in a vastly reduced development time.

• To investigate novel technologies for extending the functionality supported by a basic manufacturing process.

• To shorten the R&D cycle time significantly by developing a software design kit with accurate models of the basic building blocks and their performance.

• To develop a generic test methodology that allows for a significant reduction of the effort required for testing and qualification, by testing the basic building blocks rather then specific PICs.

• To develop a generic packaging approach that allows for packaging a variety of different PICs with a small set of standardized packages.

• To develop a business model for a rapid but evolutionary introduction of the generic foundry approach in a number of application field, mainly by and for SMEs.