A team from the Photonics Research Laboratory (PRL)-iTEAM of the Universitat Politècnica de València and the company iPronics have designed and manu­factured a revolutionary chip for the tele­communications sector, data centers and infra­structure associated with artificial intelligence computing systems. It is the first universal, programmable and multifunctional photonic chip worldwide. It will benefit 5G communications, data centers, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, satellites, drones and autonomous driving, among many other appli­cations.

The development of this revolutionary chip is the main result of the European project UMWP-Chip, led by researcher José Capmany and funded by an ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. The chip devised and manu­factured by the UPV and iPronics team allows on-demand programming and inter­connecting wireless and photonic segments of communi­cation networks, avoiding the generation of bottle­necks that can limit both the capacity and bandwidth available.

“It is the first chip in the world with these characteristics. It can implement the twelve basic func­tionalities required by these systems and can be programmed on demand, thus increasing the efficiency of the circuit,” explains Capmany. He explains that appli­cations such as 5G or autonomous cars require a higher frequency, making it necessary to reduce the size of the antennas and the associated circuits. In this case, the team has managed to make the converter behind the antenna, an interface chip, as tiny and compact as possible and ready to support current and expected future frequency bands.

This chip has already been integrated into an iPronics product, the Smartlight, and Vodafone has already used it in testing. “For us, the development of this chip is a crucial step because it has allowed the validation of our develop­ments applied to a growing problem, the efficient management of data flows in data centers and networks for arti­ficial intelli­gence computing systems. Our next goal is to scale the chip to meet the needs of this market segment," said Daniel Pérez-López, co-founder and CTO of iPronics. (Source: UPV)

Reference: D. Pérez-López et al.: General-purpose programmable photonic processor for advanced radiofrequency applications, Nat. Commun. 15, 1563 (2024); DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45888-7

Links: Photonics Research Labs, iTEAM Research Institute, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain • iPronics, Programmable Photonics, Valencia, Spain

Further reading: A. González & J. Theodoras: Programmable photonics for coherent transceiversOn-the-fly DSP functions in the optical domain, PhotonicsViews 1, 48 (2023); DOI: 10.1002/phvs.202300001