Terapic Project Awarded

Kotura Inc., a Monterey Park, Calif.-based supplier of silicon photonics components, and CyOptics Inc., a Breinigsville, Pa., developer of indium phosphide (InP) optical chip and component technologies, announced that the US Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Advanced Technology Program (ATP) has awarded it $5.9 million in funding for a three-year project to develop Terapics (Terabit Photonic Integrated Circuits).

“In network centers and high- performance computing clusters, Terapics will reduce the number of transceivers, connectors and fibers by a factor of 100,” said Arlon Martin, vice president of sales and marketing at Kotura. “We are excited that NIST-ATP sees the potential of our combined technologies to achieve this goal.”

Stefan Rochus, vice president and of marketing and business development at CyOptics, said, “The funding support being provided by NIST-ATP will help to push photonics integration technology frontiers to new limits. The Terapics development project will leverage CyOptics’ broad device portfolio of InP-based lasers, receivers and integration processes as well as our highly automated assembly and packaging platforms.”

The project will use a combination of monolithic and hybrid integration to reduce hundreds of individual components to less than 10. While the first phase of the Terapics development will provide a platform for 100-Gb Ethernet, the final project goal targets the demonstration of optical laser and receiver components for transmission speeds of up to 1 terabit per second (1000 Gb/s).

Kotura will develop the highly integrated silicon photonics chips, which serve as the mounting platforms for the laser and receiver arrays and which provide the multiplex and demultiplex functions. CyOptics will develop the monolithic arrays of high-speed InP-based lasers and detectors, the automated assembly processes and the laser and receiver components. The Terapics components will be assembled on CyOptics’ US-based automated assembly platform.

For more information, visit: www.cyoptics.com