£1.1M SUPER8 project to develop 200GBps optical transceiver
UK collaborative project to focus on development of ultra-high speed platform for optical datacomms in hyper-scale Cloud datacentres
The Compound Semiconductor Centre (CSC) - a Joint Venture between Cardiff University and IQE Plc - has announced the award of a £1.1M collaborative R&D project under the recent InnovateUK Emerging and Enabling Technologies Call.
Project SUPER8: (A scalable 200Gb/s Super-thermal, 8 channel Coarse WDM architecture) will focus on the development of new ultra-high speed transceiver platform to service the enormous growth market in optical data communications in hyper-scale Cloud datacentres.
The consortium comprising CSC (Cardiff), Kaiam (Livingston) and Compound Semiconductor Technologies (Glasgow) will collaborate to deliver a commercial grade solution with the target of transfer to high volume manufacturing in a timescale of 30 months.
CSC Project Lead, Wyn Meredith commented:"The adoption of cloud services, video on demand and emerging IoT services are driving a massively expanding global data bandwidth demand. The UK is already a major player in the supply of high performance compound semiconductor materials and components that underpin the global communications network. However, next generation high capacity networks will require higher transmission rate, lower cost transceiver solutions. This project will deliver an "˜all UK' developed and manufactured solution which leverages world class compound semiconductor materials and device expertise at CSC and CST with Kaiam's highly innovative Photonic Integrated Circuit technology."
CSC was founded in 2015 as a Joint Venture between Cardiff University and IQE Plc, with the mission of accelerating commercialisation of Compound Semiconductor Materials and Device Research. Based in Cardiff, the Centre is a vital milestone towards developing a World-class Compound Semiconductor cluster in South Wales.
Compound Semiconductor Technologies Global Ltd (CST Global) of Hamilton (near Glasgow), Scotland, UK is an independent supplier of high volume compound semiconductor optoelectronic foundry solutions including communications sources such as DFB lasers, gain chips and optical amplifiers.
Kaiam is a high performance transceiver manufacturer headquartered in Newark, California, with a primary manufacturing plant in Livingston, Scotland. Kaiam's core technology is smart photonic integration.
