STARLight is a major opportunity to establish Europe at the forefront of 300mm Silicon Photonics (SiPho) innovation and thus “Solidify the European photonics ecosystem and accelerate its industrial deployment”. The main STARLight vision is to contribute to European sovereignty relying on the achievement of an efficient and resilient ecosystem and a sustainable society by driving excellence and innovation in the implementation of 300mm silicon photonics manufacturing capacity in Europe (STMicroelectronics, France). The main STARLight goals are: -To offer Europe a realistic solution ensuring its independency on the sourcing of SiPho and other needed optical module compounds (EIC, laser), based on a true European end-to-end value chain, tailored to the global market. -To give Europe the opportunity to move forward with industrial and academic players by joining in the risk-taking necessary for the growth dynamics of SiPho optical modules in Europe, addressing applications such as Data Centers including Hyperscalers, Artificial Intelligence, Telecom, Automotive Lidar, Inter-Satellites communication. -To expand the European photonics technology platform family in terms of accessibility, upscaling and high yield, packaging assembly and providing modelling tools to converge on a mainstream simulation flow. -To be ready for future applications with 200 GBaud (400 Gbps PAM4/lane) by leveraging leading-edge SiPho technology innovations using the integration of heterogeneous non-silicon materials. -To demonstrate the benefit of SiPho optical modules sustainability, providing a better energy-saving, reliability, limited usage of copper and aluminium materials, and reducing the usage of polluting material and water. The STARLight project makes it possible to promote a concept of collaboration, which is based on an ecosystem bringing together the various actors of the supply chain ranging from the technologies, the circuits providers to the manufacturer of modules and systems.

DYNAMOS develops fast (1 ns) and widely tunable (>110 nm) lasers, energy-efficient (~ fJ/bit), broadband (100 GHz) electro-optic modulators, and high-speed (1 ns) broadcast-and-select packet switches as photonic integrated circuits (PICs). DYNAMOS meets the expected outcome objectives and call scope by proposing the development of low energy (few pJ/bit) PICs, which are integrated into modular and scalable subsystems, and subsequently utilized to demonstrate novel data centre networks with highly deterministic sub-microsecond latency to enable maximum congestion reduction, full bisection bandwidth (lower congestion) and guaranteed quality of service while reducing cost per Gbps. The proposed network offers optical circuit switched reconfiguration and guaranteed (contention-less) full-bisection bandwidth, allowing any computational node to communicate to any other node at full-capacity. DYNAMOS builds on recent developments in III-V optoelectronics, thick silicon-on-insulator waveguide technology, and silicon organic hybrid (SOH) modulators. It co-develops the entire ecosystem of transceivers, switches and networks to boost overall performance and to reducing the total cost of data exchange, instead of focusing on the improvement of individual optical links or interfaces. The objectives of DYNAMOS perfectly match the major photonics research & innovations challenges defined in the Photonics21 Multiannual Strategic Roadmap 2021-2027.

MASSTART aims to provide a holistic transformation to the assembly and characterization of high speed photonic transceivers towards bringing the cost down to €1/Gb/s or even lower in mass production. This will guarantee European leadership in the Photonics industry for the next decade. MASSTART will surpass the cost metric threshold by using enhanced and scalable techniques: i) glass interface based laser/PIC and fiber/PIC coupling approaches, leveraging glass waveguide technology to obtain spot size and pitch converters in order to dramatically increase optical I/O density, while facilitating automated assembly processes, ii) 3D packaging (TSV) enabling backside connection of the high speed PIC to a Si carrier iii) a new generation of flip chip bonders with enhanced placement in a complete assembly line compatible with Industry 4.0 which will guarantee an x6 improvement in throughput and iv) wafer-level evaluation of assembled circuits with novel tools that will reduce the characterization time by a factor of 10, down to 1 minute per device. This process flow will be assessed with the fabrication and characterization of four different demonstrators, addressing the mid-term requirements of next generation transceivers required by Data Center operators and covering both inter- and intra- Data Center applications. These demonstrators are: i) a 4-channel PSM4 module in QSFP-DD format with 400G aggregate bit rate, ii) an 8-channel WDM module in a QSFP-DD format with 800G aggregate bit rate, iii) a 16-channel WDM on-board module delivering 1.6Tb/s aggregate line rate and iv) a tunable single-wavelength coherent transceiver with 600Gb/s capacity following the DP-64QAM modulation format on 64Gbaud/s line rate. Finally, MASSTART will interact closely with international bodies to ensure the compliance and standardization of the developed technology with other proposed packaging form factors for rapid commercialization.

The strong drive for more complex systems and more advanced packaging, including optics and photonics, creates a chance to retain the manufacturing and packaging value chain to Europe - or even start to bring it back. APPLAUSE supports this by building on the European expertise in advanced packaging and assembly to develop new tools, methods and processes for high volume mass manufacturing of electrical and optical components. The technologies will be piloted in 5 industrial Use Cases, related to 1. Substantially smaller 3D integrated ambient light sensor for mobile and wearable applications (AMS) 2. High performance, low cost, uncooled thermal IR sensor for automotive and surveillance applications (IDEAS) 3. High speed Datacom transceivers with reduced manufacturing costs (DustPhotonics) 4. Flexible cardiac monitoring patch and miniaturized cardiac implants with advanced monitoring capabilities (GE Healthcare and Cardiaccs) 6. Optical water measurement modules with cost-effective packaging of components (Vaisala) The APPLAUSE consortium is built of a number of leading experts from European electronics packaging companies representing different value chain levels related to advanced packaging and smart system integration. The parties have complementary expertise in conception, design, packaging, testing and manufacturing of electronic components, as well as a wide range of expertise from several different end use areas. The unique European ecosystem established within the consortium represents the competitive, leading edge of the technologies available.

Electronic devices evolved significantly, fuelling the digital transformation towards a connected society. To growing need for performance, speed and efficiency pushes wireless applications to operate at sub-THz frequencies and beyond. Today’s technologies, however, come short to efficiently and effectively utilize these frequencies, even taking into account technological evolutions. A disruptive yet commercially viable technology is urgently needed. Indium Phosphide (InP) has outstanding and unique capabilities to surpass other technologies in terms of high-frequency performance. Today, InP is only adopted in niche markets because of its costly and scarce substrates. Move2THz will transform the InP platform and build a fully integrated European value chain providing commercially attractive, ecology-friendly, mass-market technologies suitable for sub-THz frequency operation and beyond, enabling emerging applications like mobile/data connectivity, imaging and sensing. To achieve this, Move2THz will radically innovate the manufacturing process by establishing a breakthrough InP-on-silicon (InPoSi) global standard. This facilitates to upscale the wafer size & volume compatible with CMOS manufacturing capacities, while minimizing the use of rare InP resources and ecological footprint. Further up the value chain, the European InP platform will be developed, matured and adopted through substrates, manufacturing, design and foundry services, including integration, packaging and education. Through Move2THz, the technical excellence provided by our consortium and the technologies developed in this project will significantly strengthen the competitive and sovereign position of Europe. It will secure its supply of semiconductors in a sustainable way for the next generations of wireless applications, generate a wealth of new market opportunities, and make significant contributions to a highly qualified European workforce. To achieve this, InP’s adoptability must accelerate NOW.