Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GOODMOD (Generic phOtOnic Design MODules)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2019-08-01 do 2020-01-31
Compared to electronics, integrated photonics is still at least two decades less mature. Electronics has many validated and qualified available building blocks (BBs). End users can use them directly from the foundries’ websites, through a licensing process for instance. These BBs have been fabricated many times and the foundries have gathered performance statistics about them. Moreover, some standards have been accepted within the user group and technology and manufacturing developments have progressed in a coherent direction.
The integrated photonics value chain is not as mature. Standardization is still a wish from all, and the functional BBs are usually custom made, according to end user needs. This means that when designing a circuit, it is hard to use many validated and qualified BBs, and hence, the foundries usually do not guarantee the performance of the BBs. Thus, end users frequently iterate the whole cycle of development (design, fabrication and characterization at least) many times in order to optimize their BBs. This is a significant cost of both time and money.
The core competency of VLC Photonics can improve this situation. With an extensive experience in designing custom BBs, we have decided to develop and use our own design software modules to produce optimized BB designs according to the material, the foundry and the process used.
Ordering and using the so-designed BBs, the customer can rely on experts’ designs, supported by all the feedback from many fabrication runs. Through licensing the use of these BBs, VLC Photonics allows the customer to save time and money through not having to iterate the design, fabrication and characterization of BBs that are already mature VLC BB designs.
The integrated photonics value chain is not as mature. Standardization is still a wish from all, and the functional BBs are usually custom made, according to end user needs. This means that when designing a circuit, it is hard to use many validated and qualified BBs, and hence, the foundries usually do not guarantee the performance of the BBs. Thus, end users frequently iterate the whole cycle of development (design, fabrication and characterization at least) many times in order to optimize their BBs. This is a significant cost of both time and money.
The core competency of VLC Photonics can improve this situation. With an extensive experience in designing custom BBs, we have decided to develop and use our own design software modules to produce optimized BB designs according to the material, the foundry and the process used.
Ordering and using the so-designed BBs, the customer can rely on experts’ designs, supported by all the feedback from many fabrication runs. Through licensing the use of these BBs, VLC Photonics allows the customer to save time and money through not having to iterate the design, fabrication and characterization of BBs that are already mature VLC BB designs.
This project has been focus on the update and refinement of a business plan for the commercialization of Photonic Integrated Building Block modules. These modules are a basic piece in the implementation of Photonic Integrated Circuits, in the same manner as a transistor is to an electronic processing unit.
As main driver of this business plan, an in depth feasibility study was carried out and cosist of: a market study, an extensive risk analysis, an IP risk evaluation and protection scheme via licensing as well as regulatory situation. A soft freedom-to-operate study was undertaken, however, due to the complexity of the IP in electronics and photonics an in depth exploration is still to be carried out. Our findings led us to consider to parallel licensing paths: soft core IP and hard core IP. As in electronics, soft core IP represents a software module or parametric cell that can provide different designs that have not been tested while hard core IP presents real, measured IP building blocks whose functionality and performance can be guaranteed.
Another important issue intensively evaluated is the brand name and marketing strategies through different traditional and modern media as well as trade fairs and through strategic partnerships.
As main driver of this business plan, an in depth feasibility study was carried out and cosist of: a market study, an extensive risk analysis, an IP risk evaluation and protection scheme via licensing as well as regulatory situation. A soft freedom-to-operate study was undertaken, however, due to the complexity of the IP in electronics and photonics an in depth exploration is still to be carried out. Our findings led us to consider to parallel licensing paths: soft core IP and hard core IP. As in electronics, soft core IP represents a software module or parametric cell that can provide different designs that have not been tested while hard core IP presents real, measured IP building blocks whose functionality and performance can be guaranteed.
Another important issue intensively evaluated is the brand name and marketing strategies through different traditional and modern media as well as trade fairs and through strategic partnerships.
Current technologies and tools are quite limited in the range of platforms they can be used for. Furthermore, these tools will enable low risk and fast developments of new technology based on photonic integrated circuits thanks to the empirical validation of the models used. To accompany these models, a large repository of such empirically tested structures will be made commercially available. With these advancements in tools and solutions, we expect a incremental socio-economic impact through the implementation of new photonic integrated circuit-based technology.