Daniel Pérez-López


Organisation: iPronics Programmable Photonics Role: Co-founder and CTO Based in: Valencia, Spain Education: PhD in Telecommunications


Although advanced electronic chips (e.g. GPUs, TPUs or FPGAs) continually advance in capability, according to Daniel Pérez- López, such chips cannot keep up with increasing performance requirements, leading to today’s hardware forming a bottleneck. Computational photonics (i.e. photonic


chips) represents an ideal solution, due to it providing lower latency, lower power consumption (photons/light consume less energy than electrons), higher bandwidth, and higher density. It is within this pioneering field that


Pérez-López and his colleagues are looking to develop and commercialise general- purpose programmable photonic circuits. ‘My work focuses on hardware advances


for novel circuit architectures, improved components and software advances leading to the creation of fault-tolerant automated routines enabling practical programmable photonic integrated circuits,’ he explained. Within this innovative field, commercialisation and scalability are two of the key challenges being faced, according to Pérez-López. ‘For a photonic integrated circuit to


reach the market, it takes extraordinary effort,’ he said. ‘You need to prove that your cutting-edge technology is providing a considerable cost-effective advantage compared to conventional approaches. However, although the maturity of integrated optics has grown over the past decades, the development of integrated circuits is still costly, risky and time-consuming.’ In this sense, the incorporation of


programmable photonic solutions is a promising alternative to improve the timing and the expansion of a technology limited by solid entry barriers such as knowledge, risks, cost and development times. ‘In addition, for programmable photonic solutions to continue to be competitive, scalability challenges need to be constantly improved to close the performance gap with application-specific solutions,’ Pérez- López said. ‘This involves the continuous optimisation of the system, and demands talented teams of photonic, electronic, mechanical and software engineers.’ Getting to this point – having co-founded a company that has since gone on to secure close to €4 million in funding – was not plain sailing, said Pérez-López. ‘During my PhD graduation period, the


lab work was particularly time-consuming, involving in some cases 14 hours per


"For a photonic integrated circuit to reach the market, it takes extraordinary effort… you need to prove your cutting-edge technology is providing a cost- effective advantage”


day to develop the first silicon photonic multiprocessor,’ he said. ‘It demanded so much of my time as I was involved in the design, experimental validation and analysis work.’ After his PhD, it was clear to Pérez-López


that in order to transfer programmable photonics solutions from the lab to the market, obtaining industry-based experience would be vital. ‘I screened the market and got an exciting


opportunity to work in a top deep-tech company developing a photonic-based quantum processor in Toronto,’ he said. ‘This was particularly challenging as it


involved being away from my family and friends and even partially overlapped with the Covid-19 pandemic. However, I made the most of this experience and it helped me grow to start my own company. The trust, support and comprehension from my family during this time was fundamental.’ Since founding iPronics, Pérez-López


has found that the biggest help has come from the team he and his co-founders have built together. ‘Passion and continuous effort are contagious and the atmosphere that is created by people growing together and striving to make history is the biggest and best source of motivation,’ he said. ‘Therefore, for those of you starting out your photonics research careers, I advise you find a good place to do your research, a team that inspires you, and give it your absolute best effort every day. In my case, I combined different skills and research areas to unlock new research paths. Unexplored fields are full of exciting challenges.’ Pérez-López can be found online at: linkedin. com/in/daniel-perez-lopez or on Twitter @daniphotonics. Some of his recent work will be demonstrated at the 2023 CLEO conference in San Jose, California.


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