SiPh PIC company Scintil Photonics adds Soitec board observer
Scintil Photonics, a fabless startup developer of silicon photonic (SiPh) photonic integrated circuits (PICs) based in Grenoble, France, has announced the addition of Ionut Radu, director of R&D at semiconductor materials company Soitec, as an observer on its eight-person board of directors. The addition of an industrial company presence on the board comes as Scintil tests prototype PICs this year, with an eye towards commercial products in 2022.
Scintil is a spin out of CEA-Leti that has combined patents licensed from that French government funded research organization with six of its own to develop SiPh PICs featuring integrated InP laser capabilities, says Pascal Langlois, deputy CEO and chairman of the board. (Sylvie Menezo is founder and CEO.) The company closed €4 million ($4.4 million) in first-round funding in August of last year (see "Silicon photonics startup Scintil Photonics raises $4.4 million in first-round funding"). Supernova Invest, Innovacom, and Bpifrance served as lead investors, with Credit Agricole Alpes Développement and endowment Fund Foreis contributing as well. The 12-person company has offices in Toronto as well as Grenoble.
While Langlois sees 5G and lidar/3D sensing applications as potential opportunities, PICs for data center network applications currently are the company’s primary focus, he said. Scintil’s strategy stops at development and supply of PICs; the company does not plan to offer transceivers, he said. Langlois added that the company’s PIC expertise could be applied to co-packaged optics in the future as well.
The company can combine silicon, indium phosphide, germanium, and silicon nitride in a CMOS compatible process it calls BackSide-on-BOX. The result is the ability to integrate laser arrays and other active and passive components and functions to support emerging applications such as multi-channel 800 Gigabit Ethernet without the need for hermetic packaging.
Scintil has secured an agreement with a commercial foundry for PIC production. Testing of the prototype PICs will keep the company busy for at least the rest of this year, according to Langlois. Meanwhile, Scintil has engaged with approximately 15 potential customers, with all but a handful interested in the PICs for data center or 5G transceivers. Demonstrators for customer evaluation are in the works as well, Langlois added. The company expects to have a reference implementation available in the third quarter of 2021.
For related articles, visit the Optical Technologies Topic Center.
For more information on optical components and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.
To stay abreast of optical communications technology, subscribe to Lightwave’s Enabling Technologies Newsletter.
Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave
Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.
He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.
You can connect with Stephen on LinkedIn as well as Twitter.