French silicon photonics technology developer Scintil Photonics reveals it has raised €13.5 million ($14.4 million) in second round funding, led by new investor Robert Bosch Venture Capital (RBVC). Previous investors Supernova Invest, Innovacom, and Bpifrance, through its Digital Venture fund, also participated in the round, which brought the company’s total funding to €17.5 million ($18.8 million; see "Silicon photonics startup Scintil Photonics raises $4.4 million in first-round funding" for more on previous funding). Sylvie Menezo, president and CEO of Scintil Photonics, says the money will help fund the company’s drive toward mass production of its CMOS III-V Augmented Silicon Photonic ICs by the end of 2024.
Scintil Photonics leverages silicon photonics to integrate active and passive functions on the same chip. That includes III-V optical amplifiers and lasers, which the company integrates on the backside of the silicon photonics wafer.
Menezo says the company has delivered prototype devices to U.S. and European companies working in the high-performance computing, 5G, and data center spaces. The chips are in various stages of testing. The fabless company has production fab and packaging partners in place, she adds.
The new funding will enable Scintil Photonics to ramp production of its current devices as well as enable development of chips for very high speed applications. Menezo say she has her eyes on transmission rates from 800 Gbps to 3.2 Tbps. Company executives are evaluating applications such as co-packaged optics, although Menezo expressed confidence that pluggable optics should meet requirements for some time yet.
In addition to its headquarters in Grenoble, France, Scintil Photonics has opened an office in Toronto, Canada. Menezo says she would like to see the company expand its footprint to the U.S. West Coast as well as Asia – something else the new funding may help enable. The company also is in the midst of expanding its employee roster, particularly in the areas of design, test, and packaging. The company currently has 15 employees; Menezo says she expects that number grow to almost 100 by 2027.
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