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iPronics targets 5G and data centres with new programmable photonic chip
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team of researchers from the photonic computing firm iPronics and the Photonics Research Lab (PRL)-iTEAM at the
Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) in Spain have developed a new photonics processor for use in telecommunications, data centres and AI computing. Led by iPronics researcher and professor at UPV, José Capmany (pictured) – previously recognised in the The Photonics100 for iPronics’ work in computational photonics – the team designed and manufactured the programmable universal photonics chip for a range of commercial applications, including 5G communications, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, satellites, drones and autonomous driving.
Funding from the ERC After previously raising €3.7m in investment to bring its general-purpose software-reconfigurable photonic processor to market, the iPronics team, in partnership with the UPV, designed and manufactured the chip with funding from an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), as part of the European UMWP-
Chip Project. The new chip allows the on-demand programming and wireless connection of photonics segments in communication networks, effectively cutting out the bottlenecks that previously would have limited the available capacity and bandwidth. “It is the first chip in the world with these characteristics,” claimed Capmany. “It can implement the 12 basic functionalities that are needed in these systems and be programmed on-demand, which results in greater efficiency of the circuits.”
Higher frequency required As a professor at the UPV explains in the published work in the Nature Communications journal noted, as applications such as 5G communications or autonomous vehicle operations require a higher frequency, it’s necessary to reduce the size of the antennas and associated circuits. In making the converter behind the antenna – which is an interface chip – as compact as possible, the photonic chip developed by the PRL-iTEAM of the UPV and iPronics supports the required frequency bands. “Photonic
Perovskite LED display can charge electronics, detect touch without sensors
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esearchers have developed a perovskite LED display that can react to touch, light, fingerprints and the user’s pulse, without
requiring additional sensors. The screen, designed at Linköping University (LiU) in Sweden, can also charge the electronics of devices it sits in, such as smartphones.
Perovskite harvests light to charge electronics
Most modern LCD and OLED screens on the market today can only display information. To become a multi-function display that detects touch, fingerprints or changing lighting conditions, a variety of sensors are required that are layered on top of or around the display. Researchers at LiU have now developed a completely new type of display where all sensor functions are also found in the display’s LEDs without the need of any additional sensors. The LEDs are made of a crystalline
material called perovskite. Its excellent ability of light absorption and emission is
6 Electro Optics May 2024
the key that enables the newly developed screen. In addition to the screen reacting to touch, light, fingerprints and the user’s pulse, the device can also be charged through the screen thanks to the perovskites’ ability to also act as solar cells. “Here’s an example: your smartwatch
screen is off most of the time; during the off-time of the screen, instead of displaying information, it can harvest light to charge your watch, significantly extending how long you can go between charges,” said Chunxiong Bao, Associate Professor at Nanjing University, previously a postdoc researcher at LiU and lead author of a paper published in Nature Electronics.
Challenges for commercialisation of the technology For a screen to display all colours, there needs to be LEDs in three colours – red, green and blue – that glow with different intensity and thus produce thousands of different colours. The researchers have developed screens with perovskite LEDs in all three colours, paving the way for a
computing could certainly work well in consumer devices wielding other photonic technologies, such as smartphones and smartwatches, where lidar and even spectrometry are now being integrated,” suggested Capmany in a previous interview with Electro Optics.
Development of the new chip And with this chip already integrated into iPronics products such as the software- reconfigurable Smartlight processor, and used by Vodafone in its test phase, the development of the new chip is key to introducing photonics computing at a consumer level. “For us, the development of this chip
is a very important step because it has allowed the validation of our developments applied to a growing problem, the efficient management of data flow in data centres, and in the networks of artificial intelligent computing systems,” said Daniel Pérez López, co-founder and CTO of iPronics and also recognised in The Photonics100. “Our next objective is to scale the chip to meet the needs of this market segment.” EO
screen that can display all colours within the visible light spectrum. But there are still many challenges to be solved before the screen is in everyone’s pocket. Zhongcheng Yuan, who is a researcher
at the University of Oxford, previously postdoc at LiU and the other lead author of the paper, believes that many of the problems will be solved within ten years: “For instance, the service life of perovskite LEDs needs to be improved. At present, the screen only works for a few hours before the material becomes unstable, and the LEDs go out,” he said. The research was financed mainly by the
Swedish government’s strategic investment in Advanced Functional Materials (AFM) at Linköping University. EO
The LED display does not need additional sensors to detect touch, light or the user’s pulse
www.electrooptics.com
Thor Balkhed
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