The European Commission has chosen a consortium 24 tech companies and universities from 11 EU countries to establish a high volume manufacturing line for silicon photonics optical modules in Europe.
The STARLight project consortium, whose name is short for ‘Silicon Technology for Applications Relying on Light with Photonics Devices’, is led by STMicroelectronics.
Over the next three years, STARLight aims to foster a complete value chain for silicon photonics on 300 millimetre wafers and develop application-driven solutions focusing on sectors such as data centres, AI clusters, telecommunications, and automotive markets
The selection has taken place under the EU CHIPS Joint Undertaking initiative which aims to bolster the EU’s semiconductor infrastructure ecosystem, increase resilience to reduce supply chain dependency, and strengthen technological leadership.
Silicon photonics is the study of photonic systems which use silicon as an optical medium. It combines the high-yield manufacturing capabilities of CMOS silicon, commonly used in electronic circuits, with the benefits of photonics, which transmits data using light.
Silicon photonics is one of the emerging technologies which is likely to be used by data centres and AI clusters optical interconnects for scale-out and scale-up growth, as well as for other technologies such as LIDAR, space applications and AI photonic processors that require better energy-efficiency and power efficient data transfer.
However, the development of advanced Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) faces a number of challenges which the STARLight aims to tackle.
These include difficulties surrounding creating highly efficient modulators capable of operating at speeds exceeding 200Gbps per lane. They also include developing efficient and reliable on-chip lasers in order to integrate systems.
Another major challenge which will be addressed by the consortium is the need to explore new advanced materials with actors like SOITEC, CEA-LETI, imec, UNIVERSITE PARIS-SACLAY, III-V LAB, LUMIPHASE and to integrate them on a single innovative silicon photonics platform, such as Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI), Lithium Niobate (LNOI), and Barium Titanate (BTO).
The consortium will also look at optimising the packaging and integration of PICs with electronic circuits.
“Silicon Photonics technology is critical to put Europe at the crossroads to the AI factory of the future and the STARLight project represents a significant step for the entire value chain in Europe, driving innovation and collaboration among leading technology companies,” said Remi El-Ouazzane, President, Microcontrollers, Digital ICs and RF products Group at STMicroelectronics.
“By focusing on application-based results, the project aims to deliver cutting-edge solutions for data centres, AI clusters, telecommunications, and automotive markets. With well-recognised pan-European partners, the STARLight consortium is set to lead the next generation of silicon photonics technologies and applications.”
The STARLight project has an initial focus to build datacom demonstrators for datacenters, based on PIC100 technology, capable of handling up to 200Gb/s with key actors including ST, SICOYA and THALES. It will also develop prototypes for free-space optical transmission systems, designed for both space and terrestrial communication.
Additionally, the project will leverage the multidisciplinary experience of major contributors to shape the research effort towards a 400Gbps per lane optical demonstrator using new materials, targeting the next generation of pluggable optics.
Separately, the project aims to develop a cutting-edge photonic processor optimised for tensor operations, such as matrix vector multiplication and multiply-accumulate, with superior characteristics in terms of size, data processing speed, and energy consumption compared to existing technologies. Since neural networks – the core algorithms behind AI – rely heavily on tensor operations, enhancing their efficiency is critical for AI processing performance.
The project also plans to develop and showcase innovative silicon photonic devices specifically designed for the telecommunications industry. Ericsson will focus on two concepts to improve mobile network efficiency. The first involves the development of an integrated switch to enable optical offload within Radio Access Networks, allowing for more efficient handling of data traffic. The second concept explores Radio over Fibre technology to relocate power-intensive processing ASICs away from antenna units, thus providing enhanced capacity and savings in embodied CO2. Additionally, MBRYONICS will develop a free space to fibre interface at the reception of Free Space Optical (FSO) communication, which is a key element in the design of an optical communication system.
Finally, the project will demonstrate how it performs in sensing applications, and the close relationships of STEERLIGHT, a LiDAR sensors maker, with car manufacturers aims to help make this an industrial reality. Within the project, Thales aims to develop sensors that accurately generate, distribute, detect, and process signals with intricate waveforms to demonstrate key functionalities.
