News: Optoelectronics
17 March 2025
UK’s Universities of Cambridge and Southampton join PIXEurope pilot line consortium
The UK’s University of Cambridge and University of Southampton have been named as participants in the PIXEurope consortium, a collaboration between research organizations from across Europe that is developing and manufacturing prototypes of their products based on photonic chips.
The Cambridge Graphene Centre and Cornerstone Photonics Innovation Centre at the University of Southampton will partner with members from across Europe to host a pilot line, coordinated by Spain’s Institute of Photonic Sciences, combining state-of-the-art equipment and expertise from 20 research organizations across 11 countries. The PIXEurope pilot line aims to encourage the adoption of cutting-edge photonic technologies across more industries to boost their efficiency.
The PIXEurope pilot line consortium has been selected by the European Commission and Chips Joint Undertaking, a European initiative aiming to bolster the semiconductor industry by fostering collaboration between member states and the private sector. The consortium is supported by €380m in total funding.
The UK participants will be backed by up to £4.2m in funding from the UK Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), match-funded by Horizon Europe. The UK joined the EU’s Chips Joint Undertaking in March 2024, allowing the country to collaborate more closely with European partners on semiconductor innovation.
Researchers at the Cambridge Graphene Centre will be responsible for the integration of graphene and related materials into photonic circuits for energy-efficient, high-speed communications and quantum devices. “This may lead to life-changing products and services, with huge economic benefit for the UK and the world,” says professor Andrea C. Ferrari, director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre.
The global market for photonic integrated circuits (PICs) production is expected to grow by more than 400% in the next 10 years. By the end of the decade, the global photonics market is expected to exceed €1500bn, comparable to the entire annual gross domestic product of Spain.
This growth is due to demand from areas such as telecoms, artificial intelligence (AI), image sensing, automotive & mobility, medicine & healthcare, environmental care, renewable energy, defense & security, and a wide range of consumer applications.
The new pilot line aims to offer cutting-edge technological platforms, transforming and transferring innovative and disruptive integrated photonics processes and technologies to accelerate their industrial adoption. The objective is the creation of European-owned/made technology in a sector of capital importance for technological sovereignty, and the creation and maintenance of corresponding jobs in the UK and across Europe.
“The UK laid the foundations of silicon photonics in the 1990s and, by pooling our expertise with partners across Europe, we can address urgent global challenges including energy consumption and efficiency,” says UK Science Minister Lord Vallance.
“The UK’s participation in the first Europe-wide photonics pilot line marks the start of the world’s first open-access photonics integrated circuits ecosystem, stimulating new technology development with industry and catalyse disruptive innovation across the UK, while strengthening UK collaboration with top European institutions working in the field,” says Ferrari.
“PIXEurope is the first photonics pilot line that unifies the whole supply chain from design and fabrication, to testing and packaging, with technology platforms that will support a broad spectrum of applications,” notes CORNERSTONE’s coordinator professor Calum Littlejohns.
“UK participation in PIXEurope is fantastic news as it represents an opportunity to collaborate closely with experts in Europe,” says professor Graham Reed, director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (the school that hosts CORNERSTONE) at the University of Southampton. “It is also an acknowledgement of the impact that CORNERSTONE has created to date.”
The Chips JU will also launch new collaborative R&D calls on a range of topics in early 2025. UK companies and researchers are eligible to participate.
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EU-funded Chips JU selects four new pilot lines to be implemented in Europe
