EO: industries are driving the development and integration of PIC technology?
ER: The main industry dominating the drive to develop and integrate PIC technology is optical data telecoms. If you look at the top 15 companies in optical data telecoms globally – mostly in the US, China and Japan – they’re all pursuing PIC technology.
This is because it’s the industry with the most pressing need to reduce energy consumption, increase bandwidth and data speeds, and continue Moore’s Law. PICs can also be produced on the wafer scale, which is absolutely key to realising cost efficiency – another key objective in optical data telecoms.
While not quite on the same level as optical data telecoms, the automotive industry is also a key industry driving the development and integration of PICs. For example, the vision systems featuring lidar, cameras and other sensors that guide autonomous vehicles, as well as the communication systems that are built within these vehicles, can all make use of PIC technology.
So these are, in my opinion, the two most important industries for PICs. They will create a ‘pipe-cleaning’ effect in the supply chain, with their high-volume demand driving down the cost of PIC production, integration and packaging. This in turn will help open up new markets and applications – e.g. sensing applications in medicine, food production and consumer electronics.
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