With a €1.1 billion envelope, the Netherlands expects to occupy a prominent place on the European and global photonics scenes.

The debates over the best paths to European technological sovereignty extend to photonics, an EU research stronghold that could make a significant contribution to the continent’s tech manufacturing revival. With a €1.1 billion envelope, the Netherlands expects to occupy a prominent place on the European and global photonics scenes.

The Dutch government has given the green light to PhotonDelta’s ambitious plan to expand the country’s position in advanced photonics circuits (PICs). PhotonDelta is a collaborative public-private ecosystem that was set up in 2018 to implement the Dutch National Plan for Integrated Photonics. It designs, develops, and manufactures solutions with integrated photonics technology. By 2030, PhotonDelta aims to create an ecosystem of hundreds of companies, serving customers worldwide through a planned production capacity of more than 100,000 wafers per year.

Can photonics help secure Europe’s technological sovereignty? “Yes, definitely,” Jorn Smeets, CMO of PhotonDelta, told EE Times Europe.

Europe has a long history of contributing to the development of photonics technology, particularly in R&D, Smeets said. On the industrial side, Photonics21, a public-private partnership between industry and research organizations, has identified photonics as critical to Europe’s future, and roadmaps have defined the innovation challenges for the EU’s Horizon Europe work program.

Integrated photonics is explicitly mentioned in the European Chips Act, with access to enhanced and new advanced pilot lines for experimentation, testing, and validation of new design concepts. Details are yet to be defined, but the measure demonstrates the EU’s willingness to occupy a strategic position in the photonics value chain.

Europe already hosts a mix of medium and small foundries for silicon photonics (SiP) and indium phosphide (InP) photonics manufacturing. Europe is unique in having invested heavily in pilot-line technologies, both at the front end (PIC production) and at the back end (packaging). “These are the pilot lines that are systematically financed in the European work programs,” Smeets said. “Unlike [those in] the U.S. and Asia, these programs are specifically accessible to SMEs. Another characteristic is that Europe — unlike the aforementioned continents, which focus on communications — is making significant investments in PIC technology for sensing applications.”

Integrated photonics offers prospects for applications far beyond data communications, and PhotonDelta could be the Netherlands’ answer to the deployment of photonics on a larger scale.

One driving force in the Netherlands is its strong network of research organizations and academic-industrial partnerships, such as the collaborative work of the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) Institute for Photonic Integration with industrial players such as Philips, NXP, and ASML.

“With Eindhoven, Twente, and Delft [Universities], we have a strong academic presence, leading innovation in this domain, ranking in the top 3 globally in terms of publications,” said Smeets. “Their research, their publications, their professors, and the rich ecosystem … around them make for fertile ground for the creation of startups. All in all, the Netherlands is in a unique position to convert the strong foundation in this technology toward a fully functioning industry.”

PhotonDelta has established a supply chain of 51 partners covering all steps from design to production, assembly, packaging, and testing, as well as the building of modules and subsystems. The ambition is to create about 4,000 full-time jobs and generate more than €1 billion in revenue by 2026.

The six-year program aims to enable PhotonDelta and its partners to further invest in photonics startups and scaleups, expand production and research facilities, attract and train talent, drive adoption, and develop a world-class design library.

“Concrete milestones for 2030 include the establishment of 200 startups; a supply contract as preferred partner for a large CMOS/SiPh foundry such as TSMC, GlobalFoundries, or Intel; and wafer production for photonics chips in the Netherlands,” said Smeets.

“The goal has been set to accelerate the industrialization of the Dutch InP and SiN [silicon nitride] production platforms to the optimum level of scale,” he said, adding that the key performance indicator would be “a front-end production volume of more than 100,000 wafers in 2030, with a derived packaging capacity in the back-end production.”

The €1.1 billion public-private investment includes €470 million of funding from the National Growth Fund (Nationaal Groeifonds). The rest is co-funded by TU/e, the University of Twente (UT), Delft University of Technology (TUD), Holst Center, TNO, imec, the Photonic Integration Technology Center (PITC), the Chip Integration Technology Center (CITC), OnePlanet, Smart Photonics, LioniX International, Effect Photonics, MantiSpectra, PhotonFirst, PHIX, and Bright Photonics.

So far, PhotonDelta has invested €177 million in promising domestic photonics startups, including Effect Photonics, QuiX Quantum, Surfix, Smart Photonics, and PhotonFirst. When asked whether PhotonDelta would look to venture beyond the country’s borders, Smeets confirmed a strong interest to include more European partners.

There are several possible avenues. PhotonDelta could support companies that want to open a branch office in the Netherlands, that could bring unique expertise to the supply chain in a collaboration, or that want to use the technology and start co-development programs, said Smeets.

“Our mission to accelerate the integrated photonics industry is shared by all of Europe, as it will bolster strategic autonomy, which our politicians have understood is urgent in light of the experience of the last few years,” he said. “It would be naive to think that we can do everything, so the best way is to join forces with those who have strong capabilities and to use the strengths of each.”

Because end users are spread all over the world, he said, “it would not make sense to concentrate our activity merely in the Netherlands.”

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Anne-Françoise Pelé is editor-in-chief of EE Times Europe.