Consortium partners

Situated in the physics department which is fully equipped with several characterization instruments like AFM, SEM, profilometer, XRD, micro-raman and facilities such as class 100 cleanroom and an electrical characterization laboratory. The team has great expertise in laser materials processing for optoelectronics using laser-based processes such as LIFT and laser sintering. Among the main achievements of the group is the use of LIFT for digitally transferring graphene pixels and of the controlled printing of solder paste bumps in line with the features of fine pitch PCBs.

LION has more than 20 years of experience in microfabrication and Si3N4 based integrated optics. Over the past 10 years, it has put strong effort in the standardization of a versatile waveguide platform, which has become very mature and is accessible via MPW wafer runs, engineering runs and production runs for commercial customers and R&D institutes. Besides the Si3N4 waveguide platform itself, LION has also great experience in hybrid integration, assembly and packaging. Also, LION is capable to bring conceptual ideas into volume production via its vertically integrated infrastructure. All aspects, like design, fabrication, testing, assembly, packaging, system and software engineering are available via a team of ~ 50 multidisciplinary engineers.

Graphenea Semiconductur SL is a privately held company that has achieved milestones in both technology development and business targets and holds a relevant track record as a supplier of high-quality graphene materials and devices to leading companies and research laboratories worldwide. GRAPH has an extensive expertise in the synthesis, characterization, handling and device fabrication of high-quality monolayer graphene films and is interested in developing the graphene industry in order to add value to the nanomaterials industry.

PHIX provides assembly services for all major OEIC technology platforms and specializes in hybrid photonics integration of chip-to-chip and fiber-to-chip if required co integrated with electronics in several standard and customized assembly services (modules). PHIX has access to a state-of-the-art infrastructure in the Netherlands, supporting the European and worldwide industrial development of ICs and PICs. Amongst others it contains a cleanroom and equipment for edge coupled integration/assembly of OEICs, fiber arrays, manual and automated flip chip bonding equipment, wirebonders, test and design tools. The hybrid platform has a wider application area and PHIX will standardize some process and assembly steps. PHIX, together with NTUA, will work on the development of a modular approach where the production steps are performed from independent modules. This way, the production line form single production unit becomes flexible.

SURF has 10 years of experience with surface modification and biofunctionalization of OEIC biosensors and will bring to the consortium its proprietary material-selective surface modification technology, which was specifically developed for the TriPleX platform of LION. Furthermore, SURF will use its chemical and biological laboratory infrastructure and equipment. The high intrinsic sensitivity of LION’s OEICs, further enhanced by the biofunctionalization of SURF results in a PIC biosensor platform with unique properties and performance. The first generation of products based on these technologies is currently being developed, and the results of MatEl should find their way to the market in a next generation of OEIC devices and electronic products.

PIEM will bring into the consortium piezo MEMS know-how accumulated over more than 20 years and industrial piezo MEMS prototyping accumulated over more than 10 years for the fabrication of piezoelectric ceramic materials (PZT and AlScN) with optimal properties with regards to chemical composition, crystalline phase, texture, morphology and ferroelectric polarization. PIEM has an active access contract with EPFL CMi to use their microfabrication platform and deposition techniques (PVD methods).

CREAL is a deep tech venture capital-funded startup whose technology provides light-field images of both high image quality and continuous depth resolution at affordable computational cost. CREAL’s technology is simple and robust in terms of manufacturing and therefore is extremely qualified to be responsible for MatEl’s light-field AR display. Also, CREAL has connections in VR/AR consumer electronics industry, and is working on 2 running projects in VR and ophthalmic industries.

AMIRES is the main partner responsible for dissemination and exploitation of the project’s results, which will offer links and access to OEIC ecosystems across Europe, which will help achieve the required impact and find/create synergistic effects with related initiatives. As an example, AMI has created the ecosystem platform used by PHOTONHUB (Photonics Innovation Hub for Europe) which consolidates most of the photonics-based services and expertise found in Europe.