InP: unlocking the power of light integrated on a chip to build a fast and energy-efficient AI infrastructure.

11:40 am - 12:05 pm

As AI infrastructure scales, interconnect bandwidth and energy efficiency are becoming key system bottlenecks. While silicon photonics has driven early adoption, III-V materials - particularly Indium Phosphide (InP) - enable a more integrated approach. InP uniquely supports monolithic integration of high-power lasers and high-speed modulators on a single platform, reducing complexity and improving performance.

As a pure-play InP foundry, SMART Photonics has established a mature InP-based integration platform, enabling scalable, high-performance optical components. The presentation highlights how this proven platform, used in a monolithic fashion, or heterogeneously integrated with Silicon Photonics, supports next-generation interconnect architectures and accelerates the deployment of energy-efficient AI data centre infrastructure.

Key Technologies Covered

InP-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs)
High-power and high-efficiency laser integration
High speed modulators
Energy-efficient optical interconnects for AI data centres
Photonic-electronic co-packaging (CPO / co-packaged optics)
Epitaxial growth and wafer-scale III-V manufacturing
Heterogeneous integration (III-V on silicon)
Optical vs electrical interconnect scaling limits

Featured Speakers

Dr. Luc Augustin

CTO, SMART Photonics

Luc Augustin received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology. He is the CTO of SMART Photonics, where he is responsible for the technology roadmap and product management. His expertise is in photonics, fabrication and characterisation of InP photonic integrated circuits. Prior to SMART he worked at Solland Solar, Philips Research and Cedova, where he always has been active in the development, pilot production and optimization of innovative technologies.

End of 2023 Luc is appointed as part-time Associate Professor at TU/e Eindhoven. His area of research is large scale integration of PICs.

He is board member of the IEEE Photonics Benelux chapter, member of the JePPIX steering committee, and member of the Board of Stakeholders of Photonics21.