1.1 billion euros will be invested to make the Netherlands a pioneer in photonics. 470 million of this comes conditionally from the National Growth Fund. To do this, PhotonDelta must partner with a major chip organization, research activities must be viable in the market, and there must be a positive interim evaluation of the PhotonDelta ecosystem.
PhotonDelta is an international organizational partnership that aims to establish an ecosystem for the development of photonic chips. These use light instead of electricity to move data and perform calculations. The Dutch government wants to maintain the country’s position as a world leader in this field.
The program will run for six years and by 2030 hundreds of companies from all over the world should participate and have a production capacity of at least 100,000 wafers per year. For this, investments are made in companies, production and training.
PhotonDelta is an initiative of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate in collaboration with Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), University of Twente (UT), Delft University of Technology (TUD), Holst Centre, TNO, IMEC, PITC, CITC. , OnePlanet, Smart Photonics, Lionix International, Effect Photonics, MantiSpectra, PhotonFirst, Phix and Bright Photonics.
It currently has 26 affiliated companies, 11 technology partners and 12 R&D partners. The organization is part of a consortium that has invested €171 million in photonics companies, including Smart Photonics, PhotonsFirst, Surfix, MicroAlign, Solmates and Effect Photonics.
Photonics should be able to make significant advances in efficiency and performance using light. This will certainly work, as worldwide power consumption is constantly increasing and huge amounts of computing power are required. Intel, HP, IBM and GlobalFoundries, among others, are working on chip technology based on photons.
Source: Hardware Info
