Ephos, a designer and manufacturer of programmable photonic chips, has secured a €41.5 million (approximately $48.3 million) grant from the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy, under the EU Chips Act. The funding will enable the company to build its manufacturing facility in Italy, as part of a project that represents an investment of €104.9 million. The facility, named Fab-2, will enable Ephos to scale production of its process for manufacturing ultra low-loss, fast-switching photonic chips on glass substrates — a material that enables ultra-low loss photonic solutions that are robust, scalable, and cost-effective. Ephos uses a proprietary femtosecond laser writing manufacturing process in its production. The Fab-2 announcement follows the opening of Fab-1 last September, the company’s first R&D and manufacturing facility in Milan.
