European Collaboration to Develop Next-Generation Optical Transceivers

Imec’s associated lab at Ghent University has joined the European Commission’s SPIRIT project on optical transceivers for next-generation flexible optical networks. The three-year research program aims to develop innovative programmable photonic components, all integrated on a Si photonic platform: low-power, multi-level modulators, flexible wavelength multiplexers and de-multiplexers, and high-speed coherent receivers will constitute the ingredients for enabling terabit capacities and software-defined operation in future metropolitan and long-haul networks.

SPIRIT’s consortium comprises seven academic research centers and companies from across Europe. Within this project, imec’s lab at Ghent University will develop the dedicated high-speed low-power driver arrays for interfacing segmented multi-level modulators. Imec’s lab at Ghent University will also develop innovative integration technologies for optically and electrically interconnecting the InP, CMOS and silicon photonic components developed in the consortium.

The total budget of the project is €4,093,014.00, with €2,870,000.00 contributed by the European Commission. The project officially started on Dec. 1, 2013 and will run for three years. The consortium, headed by the National Technical University of Athens (GR), comprises Fraunhoffer-HHI, imec, AMO GmbH, LINKRA S.r.l., Ericsson Telecomunicazioni and Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE A.E.).