The main objectives of PICs4All are: * promoting the use of the PIC technology; * bringing together academia to explore new photonics technologies and applications and * lower the barrier for using PIC technology by offering hands-on support to companies, especially SMEs who can benefit from photonic integrated technology in the improvement of current appliances or the developement of entirely new ones. These goals have been achieved by:
* active scouting amongst academia and companies for opportunities for the use of PICs;
* reaching out to potential users that are not yet aware of the benefits of PIC’s;
* organizing PIC design courses, workshops;
* connecting users to optical chip designers or providing actual supporting in layout design;
* assist in gaining access to PIC prototype fabrication by foundries who run Multi-Project Wafer runs and
* offering support in the testing of prototype PICs. All the activities are advocated by publicity e.g. newsletters, application notes and participation in conferences and exhibitions.
The support activities were largely free of charge, only limited budget was available for actual making PIC-designs, no budget was available for prototyping. For these actions, additional funding needed to be found.
The results of the project in concrete activities and numbers are:
• The application support centres (ASCs) were established to create a sustainable ecosystem of local experts networked at the European level.
• Outreach to 237 leads, translated to 100 consultancy cases and 50 prototyping trajectories.
• A high level of design (66 ASPIC designs) and testing (37 tested ASPICs) was achieved, far exceeding expectations for 27 designed and tested ASPICs.
• Barriers to exploitation have been extensively analysed, identifying a range of obstacles and remedies.
• Exploitation is seen in terms of the direct uptake of PIC technology with tens of users per year prototyping on open access technology. Developments have been shared in public roadmaps to accelerate eco-system development.
• Dissemination has been implemented and assessed using a wide range of channels and this has been fine-tuned over the duration of the project. Analysis of methods through surveys and interviews has led to increased focus on sixteen ASC authored Application Notes and additional applications notes in the pipeline. Project findings have been analysed in the context of the literature on boundary spanning and application notes have played a key role.
• Conclusions of actions and recommendations highlight the key role ASC networks will have in the future exploitation of new technologies, the need for credibility, and the need to combine deep-technology expertise with customer-oriented support. These skills are expected to be particularly valuable in the development of regional technology hot-spots, digital innovation hubs and access to open access manufacturing services.
• Socio-economic impact is reviewed in terms of future potential. The impact of a new implementation of a KET – namely photonic integration – which offers mass-manufacturable products with advances in miniaturization, cost, performance is challenging to predict, but the PICs4All activities have identified keen interest across a broad range of sectors.
