Pilot Photonics secures large european funding win to develop key technologies for CPO scaling

SAN DIEGO, March 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pilot Photonics today announced that the company has secured €2.5M from the European Innovation Council (EIC) to develop, integrate and commercialize key technology blocks relevant to a coherent co-packaged optics (CPO) solution to overcome future scaling challenges in the datacentre.

The explosion in data processing due to the adoption of AI/ML is putting further pressure on datacentre networks and in large computing arenas. New architectures are emerging to tackle this problem but already scaling challenges are appearing and new innovations will be needed to overcome them.

Supported by this EIC funding Pilot Photonics will mature a number of its patented technologies including comb lasers, ring resonator IQ modulators and comb-enhanced DSP algorithms. These innovations are relevant to both pluggable and CPO architectures today and can help unlock coherent communication inside the datacentre. They enable datacentre switches at 204.8T and beyond as well as longer reach CPO systems at 10km (LR) distances or more.

The funding is provided through the EIC's Transition programme and involved a rigorous evaluation process consisting of a highly competitive written proposal stage, followed by an interview stage with a 7-person panel of experts.

"The low-hanging fruit for scaling CPO, namely power splits and coarse wavelength multiplexing is already taken," said Dr. Frank Smyth, founder, and CTO at Pilot Photonics, "This project recognises that continued densification of the interconnects is required for future cloud and AI/ML network scaling. It develops key enabling technologies such as comb laser technology to densify the wavelength grid and ring resonator IQ modulators to increase the information spectral density. We're excited to get it underway."

Pilot Photonics will be present at OFC2024, March 26th to 28th, San Diego Convention Center (booth 1250) where the company will provide details of the development program and discuss its other technologies including its fast tunable low linewidth laser, and integrated comb laser technologies.

About Pilot Photonics

Pilot Photonics produces innovative laser sources and photonic integrated circuits and applies them to challenging problems in the communications, automotive, and space industries. The company is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

Note to Editors

Pilot Photonics Founder and CTO Dr. Frank Smyth is available for briefings.

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