Silicon Photonics Research Centre of Excellence launched at IIT Madras

A Silicon Photonics Research Centre of Excellence was launched on Friday at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. The centre has been established with the financial support provided by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). It will provide essential training to bolster the future ecosystem of Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) manufacturing in India.

MeitY Secretary S Krishnan launched the centre.

Besides high-speed transceivers for data centres, Silicon Photonics Technology is vital for many other advanced technology applications such as Quantum Computation, Quantum Key Distribution, Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence as well as 5G/6G and future networks.

The Silicon Photonics Centre of Excellence, the Centre for Programmable Photonic Integrated Circuits and Systems (Silicon Photonics CoE-CPPICS) is expected to achieve self-sufficiency within five years and drive product commercialisation through start-ups, says a release.

Also read: IIT Madras researchers patent ‘Combined Power Generation Technology’

This Silicon Photonics CoE-CPPICS will play a major role in the coming years to reduce existing gaps in the country and fulfill the ambitious objectives of the Centre’s India Semiconductor Mission. It is actively developing indigenous PIC design rules and hardware infrastructure for precision packaging for system-level applications, the release said.

Krishnan in his address said that the immediate focus of this CoE is to provide better solutions for microwave and quantum photonics applications such as advanced photonic processors to be used in high-performance RF transceivers, scalable linear optical quantum computing processors for the next generation qubit computation, and chip-level quantum key generation and distribution circuits among others.

V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said that the substantial seed funding for establishing the Silicon Photonics CPPICS by MeitY has helped in consolidation of indigenously-developed Silicon Photonics technology at IIT Madras. I am confident that the centre is going to impact significantly, both in the domestic as well as global silicon photonics R&D market in the upcoming years.”

Bijoy Krishna Das, Chief Investigator, Silicon Photonics CoE-CPPICS, IIT Madras, said that CoE-CPPICS has tied-up with Silterra Silicon Photonics Foundry, Malaysia, for wafer scale yield testing of some novel silicon photonic devices. The team has also signed a MoU with Keysight USA for joint R&D activities in the area of silicon photonics technology.

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