LOLIPOP consortium consists of 11 partners from 5 European countries (Greece, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium and Germany).
Among those partners, there are 5 SMEs (PHIX, Superlum, Optagon, QuiX and IRIDA), two large companies (LXI and Polytec), 3 world renowned research and technology organizations (CSEM, TYN and IMEC), and two academic organizations (ICCS and UT) with strong exploitation interests and channels.
The partners have been brought together due to their expertise and expected contributions to individual technical aspects of LOLIPOP project. Some of them are really irreplaceable in the sense that their expertise and technical infrastructure are unique in Europe, and thus absolutely necessary for achieving LOLIPOP objectives, whereas the rest of the consortium partners are the natural choice of organizations to be on board due to their high expertise and the already established collaboration paths they have with other partners on the technology topics of LOLIPOP.
Programme Call: HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01
Type of action: HORIZON-RIA
Project number: 101070441
EU contribution: € 4.996.729,25
Duration: 42 months
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or [name of the granting authority]. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
ICCS will be the responsible partner for a broad range of system modelling, system integration and system characterization activities. These will include the development of high-speed FPGA units for generation of high-speed driving signals, processing of high-speed sensing signals, and implementation of real-time systems for the functional integration of the LIDAR module with the photonic neural networks of the project. The experience of ICCS in the development of this kind of demanding systems is large, mainly through the development of FPGA units for 5G systems. Finally, ICCS will be responsible for the design of the free-space optics of the LIDAR module.
LXI is today the reference point for the silicon nitride photonic integration technology in Europe. TriPleX, the silicon nitride platform of LXI is of high quality, it is agile and multi-functional, and is already offered as a commercial service in the framework of MPW runs. The use of TriPleX and thus the participation of LXI are irreplaceable in a European project that aims to work on a state-of-the-art silicon nitride platform, and take it further.
CSEM is today the only organization in Europe with an already established process flow for the processing LNOI wafers and the development of LNOI films. The participation of CSEM is definitely a key for LOLIPOP at the fundamental, photonic integration technology level.
PHIX Photonics Assembly is a high-tech packaging solution provider, specialized in chip-to-chip hybrid integration, coupling to fiber arrays, and interfacing of DC and RF electrical signals. The selection of PHIX has been straightforward given its packaging expertise and close collaboration with several partners in this consortium.
TYN participates in LOLIPOP effort with the responsibility for the development of the micro-Transfer-Printing (µTP) method. TYN is in fact one of the leading partners worldwide in the development and the implementation of this method for photonic integration tasks involving various donors and hosting platforms. Two dedicated XCeleprint machines to µTP tasks are hosted by TYN and will be used within LOLIPOP for the optimization of the µTP of LNOI films on the TriPleX platform.
UT is the partner that has developed the PureGaB Ge-on-Si PD process, which will be the basis for the growth of Ge-PDs inside pockets on the TriPleX platform.
The co-location of UT with LXI, and the use by UT of the same foundry services in the MESA+ institute of UT as the LXI is an additional factor that is expected to boost effective interaction and faster iteration runs for the development of this technology.
Superlum is one of the basic design houses and vendors of active elements (gain chips) based on GaAs for operation at 780-1100 nm. Its expertise and its already established collaboration with LXI on the combination of GaAs chips with the TriPleX platform for the development of narrow linewidth lasers at wavelengths shorter than 1000 nm makes Superlum a natural choice as consortium partner.
Optagon is a company with established collaborations with ICCS, LXI, PHIX, IMEC and Polytec, and with already significant experience in the development of control electronics for programmable PICs in applications such as LDVs, optical equalizers, optical beamforming networks, and optical switches. Moreover, Optagon has extensive knowhow in the design of photonic elements such as diffraction gratings for light out-coupling and in-coupling applications. Within LOLIPOP this knowhow will be exploited for the design of the OPA in the LIDAR system.
Polytec is a leading vendor of LDV solutions. Its participation in the project will be valuable in the description of the use cases for ultra-high bandwidth LDVs, in the design of the LDV modules, and in the system characterization of these modules inside a representative environment.
IMEC is one of the reference points in Europe for the development of ultra-high speed CMOS and BiCMOS electronic ICs for optical modulators and detectors in a variety of applications including telecom, datacom and sensing applications. Their pick has been also straightforward.
QuiX is one of the most promising European companies in the field of quantum computing and quantum communications. Its participation in the project will offer an exploitation path for the squeezed state source and for any other solution relevant to quantum applications based on the second order nonlinearity of the LNOI films.
IRIDA is a software-based technology provider for AI and machine vision applications. IRIDA will bring its expertise in the design and training of neural networks, and in the implementation of algorithms for image processing and classification tasks. It is expected thus to guide the other partners on how to program and use the photonic hardware of LOLIPOP for meaningful image processing tasks. IRIDA will also offer the possibility for direct benchmarking of the LOLIPOP module against the performance of electronic neuromorphic processors.