Description du projet
De grands projets pour l’intégration photonique
Imaginez qu’il soit possible de réduire suffisamment des systèmes optiques complexes, souvent de grand taille, pour les faire tenir sur une puce minuscule. C’est ce que l’on appelle l’intégration photonique. Cette technologie dominante dans les communications à large bande passante est appelée à conquérir de nombreux domaines de la photonique. La société suisse LIGENTEC a mis au point une technologie de nitrure de silicium (SiN) épais qui permet de fabriquer des circuits intégrés photoniques (PIC) à l’aide de procédés plus performants et moins coûteux que les approches classiques. Cette technologie a atteint le TRL 7 et a remporté un grand succès auprès des clients lors du prototypage. Le projet SPECTRA, financé par l’UE, permettra d’industrialiser les processus de fabrication et de préparer leur mise à l’échelle, en mettant notamment en place une chaîne de contrôle de la qualité pour la production. Il certifiera également la technologie et sa conformité aux normes industrielles.
Objectif
The Sensing and Communication markets are predicted to increase tremendously over the next few years, especially pushed from medical instrumentation, diagnostics, autonomous driving, quantum computing and communication. Photonic Integration, the ability to shrink complex optical systems on a small chip, is one of the key technologies with an enabling and highly disruptive potential in those verticals.
LIGENTEC has developed a unique thick Silicon Nitride (SiN) technology which enables the manufacturing of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) at better performance and lower cost than common approaches. The technology has reached TRL 7 and gained a lot of customer traction in prototyping.
LIGENTEC has estimated its serviceable available market in the Sensing and Communication segments of €400m by 2023 and €1.5bn by 2027 respectively. First customers are ready to enter volume manufacturing in 2022/2023.
This EIC project focus is to industrialise the manufacturing processes and prepare for scale-up including a quality control line for production and certify the technology to industry standards. It is strategic to the company as it enables LIGENTEC to enter the volume market.
At the end of this project LIGENTEC will:
• Have World leading PIC technology for quantum, LiDAR and Space vertical at industrial scale
• Setup and validated a quality control and metrology line
• Have certified reference designs to industry standards allowing easier design for customers enabling new applications in new markets
• Be ready to enter volume market and acquire customers with a need of PICs up to 1’000’000 units / year
• Have demonstrated increased production repeatability, yield and proven product reliability
LIGENTEC is managed by an experienced team which has successfully scaled a high-tech business in photonics in the past.
Champ scientifique
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinateur
1024 Ecublens
Suisse
L’entreprise s’est définie comme une PME (petite et moyenne entreprise) au moment de la signature de la convention de subvention.