LATEST NEWS

In recent years, the potential of optics and photonics for communication is expanding rapidly and will form the basis of future communication systems. In this article we give three examples of integrated photonics applied in the data and telecom sector and the advantages they bring.

Still a rather clunky and expensive instrument, the automotive and many other markets eagerly await the availability of an affordable and compact lidar system. Integrated photonics is coming to the rescue.

On September 29th, PhotonDelta launched its roadmap for the use of integrated photonics in the automotive sector. The roadmap was created together with various stakeholders from the industry as well as integrated photonics companies and provides an overview of the different trends in the automotive sector and list the opportunities for integrated photonics technology.

Our lifestyle has evolved virtually over the last decade, causing an exponential surge in data consumption. High bandwidth data transfers, affordable data plans, cloud migrations and the increasing popularity of streaming services are all contributing to this trend.

Fundraising of EUR 158.5M in total was achieved by presenting companies from the last 3 years’ editions of Photonics event.

2021 edition of the Tech Tour Photonics, organized by Tech Tour and hosted by PhotonHub Europe, Photonics21 & ACTPHAST 4.0, and with the support of EPIC, will be held online this Autumn. This year, due to Covid-19 travel risks, a series of online presentation sessions will ..... 

A programme to train thousands of industry workers in the adoption and development of innovative photonics-based solutions to some of society’s biggest challenges, from environmental sustainability to healthy living and smart infrastructure, has been established by a consortium of over 50 of Europe’s top photonics competence centres.

No single integrated-photonics technology can do it all: they need to be combined for maximum functionality. The set of techniques to do that – hybrid or heterogeneous integration – is a key growth driver for the Dutch integrated-photonics industry.

QuiX, the worldwide market leader in quantum photonic processors, ahs delivered a 12-mode quantum photonic processor to Germany.

QuiX Quantum reports the realization of the largest Universal Quantum Photonic Processor in a scientific paper published today. 

Global healthcare has never been under so much pressure to deliver and innovate to provide effective patient care at affordable costs to an ever increasing and ageing population. 

PHIX has partnered with Dutch flow meter/controller manufacturer Bronkhorst High-Tech B.V. to enable volume manufacturing of thermal mass flow sensors using PHIX’s micro-assembly know-how and technology.

Evolving photonic integration is opening up a wealth of opportunities in many application areas by enhancing functionality and spectral coverage, facilitating new applications in biomedical, environmental and industrial fields, making devices more power-efficient and bringing ground-breaking technologies within reach of entrepreneurial SMEs.

Over the past two decades, on more than one occasion the time seemed right for integrated-photonics technology to move beyond niche applications. Now finally, everything is lined up for that to happen, says Lionix International CEO Arne Leinse. It will require one more bold investment push, however.

Surfix announces an investment of € 8,5 million by a Dutch consortium consisting of companies Qurin Diagnostics and LioniX International, industry accelerator PhotonDelta and the East Netherlands Development Agency Oost NL for further development of Surfix’s plug-and-play diagnostics platform.

The Netherlands and Taiwan, both frontrunners in photonics research, can join forces through a new cooperation programme. NWO, together with the Taiwanese science funding agency, is making 3 million euro available and facilitating matchmaking activities to form consortia.

On 2 June 2021, the integrated photonics industry accelerator PhotonDelta, research institute TNO, Eindhoven University of Technology and University of Twente will sign a cooperation agreement for the new Photonic Integration Technology Center (PITC) in the Netherlands 

QuiX, the Twente-based worldwide market leader in quantum photonic processors, has sold one of its devices to Quandela, the leading French quantum technologies firm. With this purchase, Quandela anticipates the French national quantum technologies program that was recently announced by president Macron, which will include a strong photonics component.

Data usage and, thus, data traffic over the mobile and fibre networks is growing exponentially every year. While the currently used optical transmission solutions are reaching their limits, a new technology is ready to be implemented.

The Dutch companies QuiX and PHIX started a collaboration in the project Qmode to overcome the packaging challenges of connecting large-scale quantum photonic processors to the outside world. 

Earlier this week, during a visit by NLdigital, the industry association of the digital sector, the 5G Hub in Eindhoven announced that EFFECT Photonics and Vodafone have started testing the integration of so-called optical SoCs in the mobile network.

The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) at the University of Waterloo (UWaterloo) and the economic development agency of Brainport Eindhoven in the Netherlands have taken another step towards bringing Waterloo’s top nanotechnology innovations to the EU market.

QuiX, the Dutch quantum photonics company, announced today that it has sold its first quantum photonic processor. The customer is Qontrol, a quantum technologies company from the UK. 

Optics11 and Optics11 Life have secured funding from Rabobank. The funding will be used to strongly accelerate growth across global markets, to further build the team for the future and to strategically expand the high-tech product portfolios of both business units. 

New H2020 project INSPIRE will revolutionize photonic integrated circuit technology by combining highest optoelectronic efficiencies in InP photonics and lowest optical loss in SiN photonics, in a single platform through wafer-scale micro-transfer printing technology 

EFFECT Photonics announces the first close of its Series C round, co-led by Smile Invest together with existing investor Innovation Industries Fund, exactly one year after announcing the tape-out of its Manta full photonic integration coherent PIC. 

Building communication links with the tremendous capacity of a fiber, without needing a fiber.

Following the renowned incubator HighTechXL, PhotonDelta has recently entered into other fruitful cooperations with NLC, Philips Innovation Services and Lumo labs. The collaboration with......

Recently, PhotonDelta signed a partner agreement with Demcon, a leading Dutch R&D partner for high-end technology. The addition of Demcon to PhotonDelta’s ecosystem will reinforce the Dutch integrated photonic systems supply-chain. 

We are happy to share with you our Annual Review 2020, which provides an overview of the results and progress we made together in 2020.

The open innovation program OIP4NWE launches its innovation support fund to stimulate uptake of integrated photonics technology by SMEs. Seven SMEs will receive innovation support from the OIP4NWE consortium.

Together with Innovation Industries, PhotonDelta invests seed capital in MantiSpectra, a recent spin-off from Eindhoven University of Technology. MantiSpectra is developing an innovative near infrared (NIR) spectrometer technology using photonic integrated chips. 

Dutch only - Ben jij als mkb-bedrijf innovatief? Wil je hierbij ondersteuning van en samenwerken met Fontys Hogescholen? En wil je in contact komen met high-potential afstudeerders? Dan is deelname aan de pilot Innovatietraineeship wellicht iets voor jouw bedrijf. 

The 2020 Integrated Photonics System Roadmap – International (IPSR-I), a global reference document that reveals the full potential of integrated photonics, has been released 

A unique ecosystem to accelerate and standardize the packaging of integrated photonics

Today Chip Integration Technology Center (CITC), Tegema, PI (Physik Instrumente) and PHIX released their new Photonics Assembly Consortium called PODIUM, funded by PhotonDelta and CITC. 

QuiX, a photonic quantum technologies company, has demonstrated the world’s largest universal quantum photonic processor. The device is plug-and-play, compatible with all photon sources, and is commercially available. It was unveiled at a product presentation today.

Who says chemical analysis needs to be performed in a laboratory, by well-trained personnel? Thanks to a photonic-chip-based spectral sensing system being commercialized by startup Mantispectra, classifying and quantifying material composition will never be easier.

PhotonHub Europe – a new pan-European photonics digital innovation hub –has been awarded €19 million investment from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.
PhotonHub Europe will help European SMEs and mid-caps become highly competitive digital businesses through faster and smarter deployment of photonics-based technologies, directly creating over 1.000 new high-tech EU jobs and nearly €1 billion in new revenues and venture capital by 2025.

A short survey in the photonic production world

PhotonDelta, TU/e - High Tech Systems Center and High Tech NL have analyzed the equipment needs of the photonic industry in a collaborative project that has been executed through surveys, workshops and interviews.

It’s been quite the journey, but Effect Photonics is finally ready to take the telecom market by storm with its tunable optical transceivers. In doing so, it will give the Dutch Photondelta integrated photonics ecosystem a most welcome boost, too.

With the addition of PhotonDelta as a shareholder, PHIX further secures its position as a leading packaging and assembly foundry within the European integrated photonics ecosystem. PhotonDelta also provides PHIX with long term financing for equipment purchases necessary to ramp up production of optoelectronic modules.

PhotonDelta is looking for a student to digitize contact details. It concerns a temporary assignment of 40 hours.

PhotonDelta, Brabant Development Agency and Brainport Development are looking for an intern / graduate Ecosystem Monitoring Integrated Photonics (32 hours).

On Friday 7 August, EFFECT Photonics, a leading developer of high-performance dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical components based on its optical System-on-Chip technology, completed its Series-B funding with an additional 8 million Euro.

The EU program ACTPHAST offers a fast and low-threshold opportunity to companies that want to use photonics to optimize their production process, or to improve and expand their product portfolio. It helps these companies to find out what photonics can do for them, and guides the companies to commercial application.

SMART Photonics, the independent foundry for photonic integrated circuits today announced a €35 million series C investment form a Dutch consortium led by Innovation Industries. 

On Tuesday 19th of May PhotonDeltas Chief Stategy and Business Development Officer, Giuseppe Coppola, gave a presentation during the Angel Tech Online Summit about IP being the enabler of disruptive innovations along the continuum-of-care. His presentation can be watched via the link below. 

Carol de Vries is already known in the PhotonDelta network for his exploration on packaging and his current work for the Photonic Integration Technology Centre. He recently started to lay down the PhotonDelta roadmap on automotive, a focal area of the PhotonDelta ecosystem. In this news item we want to give you a short introduction on Carol and his ambition with regards to the automotive roadmap.

At the end of April, the Dutch consortia of the PhotonDelta Flagship project jointly kicked off the project. The project addresses the realization of a robust and versatile hybrid integrated photonics platform that provides scalable solutions for a suite of applications. Moreover, with two proven technology platforms within the Netherlands, InP and TriPleX, the PhotonDelta Flagship project demonstrates scalability to high-volume manufacturing aiming for space quality modules; the highest quality grade in industry. Hence, this project indirectly also supports several industry and application driven roadmaps.

PhotonDelta works on an integrated photonics-based roadmap for bio-sensing, so that ongoing and future projects can to be imbedded into the bigger picture on the future of bio-sensing. This roadmap is based on the ground work laid down by the TU Eindhoven and the University of Twente. It will be drawn up with all the cluster partners of PhotonDelta, as well as with other relevant partners academic and industrial partners and lead customers . This will be coordinated by Maarten Buijs, who recently joined the team of PhotonDelta. In this news item we want to give you a short introduction to Maarten and his ambition with regards to this roadmap.

Surfix, together with its shareholders Qurin Diagnostics and LioniX International,  today announce an accelerated development plan to allow mass-scale COVID-19 diagnosis and immunity detection with the financial support and in close collaboration with PhotonDelta.

PHIX Photonics Assembly secures funding from Innovation Industries and Oost NL
PHIX started its operations in July 2018 to serve the growing demand for photonic assembly activities. PHIX’s goal of becoming the world leader in this field has come one step closer with large new investments from Innovation Industries and existing investor Oost NL (through Innovatiefonds Twente). These investments catalyze PHIX’s growth and its ambitions to scale up its manufacturing volumes.

Heterogeneous integration and advanced packaging is essential for connecting chips and protecting them. The Chip Integration Technology Centre (CITC), located in Nijmegen, bridges the gap between science and industry in the field of materials, machines and semiconductors. In the  centre, new technology is being developed to make the packaging of the chip smaller, better and cheaper. Chip manufacturers, test and packaging companies, material suppliers, software developers, photonics firms and research institutions will work together on creating this innovative chip integration technology.

With the team in place, the design of offices & lab rooms and program lines running, the CITC was able to officially open on the 5th of March. 

From 11th to 13th of February, the second PhotonDelta Application Bootcamp was held at TU/e. Experts in the field at TU/e tried to come up with solutions for Hendrix Genetics, with the use of integrated photonics. The challenge is set on measuring conventional egg properties. 

The company is enthusiastic about the Application Bootcamp. “Fascinating what the team was able to come up with in a few days. Photonics and spectroscopy look like promising technologies for measuring conventional egg properties such as shell thickness and egg quality automatically and at scale. It may even allow us to measure fertilization, embryo health and sex without opening the egg.” Bram Visser, Hendrix Genetics.

Last Thursday the Ambassador of Ireland, Mr. Kevin Kelly, along with leaders from its two most important trade organizations, Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland, visited the Brainport region. PhotonDelta presented its strategy and its integrated photonics supply chain. In addition to that, the Irish visitors experienced a tour around Philips Innovation Centre and presentations from EIT Digital, EIT Health and HighTechXL.
 
The meeting was a first introduction to each other’s strengths and interests. The aim of the visit was a to explore whether Ireland and the Netherlands, in particular the Brainport region, can connect in terms of innovation and trade. The discussion lead to enough mutual interest and eagerness to connect PhotonDelta, the Dutch integrated photonics cluster, to companies in Ireland, primarily those active in the medical and, growing, automotive segment,to further explore options for concrete co-operations.

PhotonDelta is about cooperation. Cooperation between engaged innovators, entrepreneurs, knowledge institutions, development agencies and governments. The purpose of this cooperation is to deliver world-leading development and production of integrated photonics solutions. Our common goal is to build and maintain around our technology a sustainable ecosystem that will support our clients, significantly impact future applications and help solve social and technology challenges. We all worked hard and made steps towards our goal in 2019.

We are happy to share with you our Annual Review 2019, which provides an overview of the results and progress we made together in 2019. 

After a successful PhotonDelta day, today we had a visit of DG Focco Vijselaar and Director Michiel Sweers (Ministry of Economic Affairs) to PhotonDelta in Nijmegen! A deep dive session in the key enabling technology of integrated photonics and the semiconductor industry. A fruitful and potential cooperation! Thank you CITC Netherlands, Novio Tech Campus, NXP Semiconductors, Nexperia and Business Cluster Semiconductors Netherlands.

We look back at a successful event, with lively and good discussions on how to grow our integrated photonics industry!  Our speakers and more then 125 attendees brought different knowledge to our event; knowledge on design, manufacturing, packaging, equipment, commercialization, research and so on!  In short, we had a close look on the lessons learned in high tech and semicon industry and to what extend the integrated photonics industry can learn from the past. During the event, we defined a more common ground on how to grow the industry, and thereby the strategy of PhotonDelta. Many new connections were made, and we hope our community has grown after the PhotonDelta day.

From 4 to 6 November, a multidisciplinary team of PhD students from the Eindhoven University of Technology has been working hard to identify possible integrated photonics based solutions to the next-generation product requirements of Storex. TU/e and PhotonDelta are initiators of this three day event, called ‘Application Lab Bootcamps’.

The Integrated Photonics Systems Roadmap – International 2020 overview, a joint initiative of AIM academy and PhotonDelta, has been released on 10-10-2019. The IPSR-I is the result of the efforts of more than 250 experts from all over the world, working in the field of integrated photonic technologies and their applications.

Active Capital Company (ACC), PhotonDelta and ABN AMRO support integrated photonic sensing market leader by providing financing to support growth.  

At PhotonDelta we generate awareness and inform others about integrated photonics and our ecosystem. During the past two weeks, PhotonDelta has been on stage at three events. Ewit Roos, CEO of PhotonDelta, looks back on these events!

EFFECT Photonics has secured €5M in funding from PhotonDelta to support its growing business. The funds will be used to further accelerate product development and business scale-up, and thereby strengthens the integrated photonics ecosystem.

Discover the world of integrated photonics: a new emerging market of integrated photonics, next to the mature market of the high-tech industry, semicon and manufacturing industry. You will get the best of both worlds at the PhotonDelta Day 2019! Together with you we grow insights: analyze the differences and similarities between the industries and learn from each other. 

Tuesday 3 december 2019
from 12:00-19:00h
Hotel Papendal

More info and register here!

Ruud van Heur is appointed by the Supervisory Board of PhotonDelta as the Chairman of our Investment committee and our Expertpanel. He is very motivated and excited to fulfil this job for PhotonDelta. But who is this business man and what are his intrinsic motives? In this interview we get to know him better by his career, his leitmotief and his view on the industry.

What is the most important lesson you learned as an entrepreneur in business about innovation?
"I learned that no individual, no industry can successfully achieve relevance on their own. You have to build bridges, to collaborate, to build together and invest in flexible networks. Sometimes not easy but necessary and rewarding."

Joachim de Sterke, CFO at PhotonDelta, was part of the expert jury of the European Photonics Venture Forum, which took place in the 26 – 27th of June in Munich. He was truly amazed by the magnitude and passion of all these (Integrated) Photonics start-ups. In parallel the same applied the funding parties. Joachim: "There is an evident growth in funding parties who are no longer “afraid” to invest in early stage Deep Tech / hardware, which not only important for these bright startups but for Europe in general. I believe, however at lot more is still needed to break down the Death Valley Curve, create more success stories and keep Europe in a competitive position."

Congrats to the six startups who were picked to move on towards the finals in November, in the end all attendees were winners!!

“In integrated photonics, there is not yet such a thing as a systems architect, someone who has a reasonable understanding of all the system components and who knows how to bring those together. Active and passive photonic components, electronics, packaging technology: it’s a mix of expertise that’s quite rare. We definitely need to address that issue.” Stated by René Penning de Vries today in an interview done by Bits&Chips.

Today in the AD, an interview with our chairman René Penning de Vries on how integrated photonics will grow in The Netherlands by working together in an ecosystem.

"The carrot and stick strategy is followed for this. The carrot is that we support companies to conduct joint research. That support can exist in the form of money, research facilities or people. The stick is that the knowledge gained must be shared with the others and that it benefits the entire club. Everyone must therefore be able to benefit from it” he states. Follow the link to read the full article in the AD (in Dutch).

Today, SMART Photonics has successfully closed a loan agreement with PhotonDelta for the amount of €3.75 million. 

"This funding allows us to further grow the company, to improve and expand our technology platform and to scale up our production capability. The possibility to produce these so called ‘PICs’ is essential for the entire supply chain to grow and to meet the market demand" according to CFO Robert Feelders. “We are very pleased with the support that PhotonDelta offers and see this as another great step in anchoring the new and exciting photonics industry in the Netherlands, including a manufacturing capability."