Silicon Photonics is vital for many advanced technologies including 5G & future networks, Quantum Computation, Quantum Key Distribution, Neural Networks & Artificial Intelligence, among others
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary, S. Krishnan, IAS, launched a Silicon Photonics Research Centre of Excellence at Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), according to an official announcement.
Within the next five years, the Silicon Photonics Centre of Excellence, Centre for Programmable Photonic Integrated Circuits and Systems (Silicon Photonics CoE-CPPICS) claims to achieve self-sufficiency and drive product commercialisation through start-ups.
The centre claims to have a high-speed transceivers for data centres, Silicon Photonics Technology claims to be vital for many other advanced technology applications such as Quantum Computation, Quantum Key Distribution, Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence as well as 5G/6G and future networks.
The Centre, established with MeitY funding support, aims to provide essential training to bolster the future ecosystem of Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) manufacturing in India. The CPPICS is actively developing indigenous PIC design rules and hardware infrastructure for precision packaging for system-level applications.
“Today, we are inaugurating yet another of MeiTY and Government of India’s initiative in IIT Madras. Many of MeitY’s efforts with IIT Madras have been huge successes and I am sure this will also succeed. We have caught up (with rest of the world) and now we should leapfrog others…. This Centre of Excellence complements many things MeitY is trying to do,”S. Krishnan, IAS, secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, said.
The immediate focus of this CoE is to provide better solutions for microwave and quantum photonics applications such as advanced photonic processors to be used in high-performance RF transceivers, scalable linear optical quantum computing processors for the next generation qubit computation, and chip-level quantum key generation and distribution circuits, among others, as explained in the release.
“As our country is moving towards building our own capability in semiconductor electronics, it is very heartening to see our Institute establish a Centre of Excellence in Silicon Photonics, which is an outcome of extensive R&D pursued over nearly two decades. The substantial seed funding for establishing this state-of-the-art Silicon Photonics CPPICS by MeitY has helped in consolidation of indigenously-developed Silicon Photonics technology at IIT Madras. I am confident that the Centre is going to impact significantly, both in the domestic as well as global silicon photonics R&D market in the upcoming years,” V. Kamakoti, director, IIT Madras, said.