First voucher call for SMEs has been started!

Role:

RTO

Responsibilities:

Coordinator for JePPIX and the JePPIX Pilot Line

Role:

Photonic Innovation Hub

Responsibilities:

Outreach and dissemination

Role:

RTO

Responsibilities:

Coordinator for ACTPHAST4.0, task leader for Voucher WP

Role:

Create and expand TNN, collaboration and support from PIXAPP pilot line

Responsibilities:

Task Lead/RTO

Role:

Photonic support organisation

Responsibilities:

Outreach and dissemination

Role:

Photonic Innovation Hub

Responsibilities:

Outreach and dissemination

Role:

Photonic support organisation

Responsibilities:

Outreach and dissemination

Role:

Photonic support organisation

Responsibilities:

Outreach and dissemination

Role:

Photonic support organisation

Responsibilities:

Outreach and dissemination

The voucher will enable access to the OIP4NWE pilot line for SMEs which want to upscale production of PICs to a trial series, beyond proof-of-concept demonstration

The voucher will cover:

1. Design verification to check compatibility of the PIC design with the OIP4NWE pilot line
2. Manufacturing of the PICs, external optics and packaging

The voucher will have a value of max. 50k€; we will ask a 20% contribution from the SME on the total project cost and 100% for anything above the 50k€ max support. This means a contribution of 20% of the cost up to a project cost of 62.5k€ (in this case the max. support of 50k€ is reached) and 100% of the cost above 62.5k€.

In order to be eligible to apply for a voucher, the following requirements should be fulfilled:

1. The applicant should be a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME), according to the European definition, which can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/business-friendly-environment/sme-definition
2. The applicant should be based in the North-West Europe region, as illustrated in Fig. 1 and as defined on https://www.nweurope.eu/about-the-programme/the-nwe-area/
3. The applicant should have demonstrated the technical feasibility of their application proposal, i.e. the applicant should have a PIC design ready and preferably a validated prototype. This means that the technology readiness level (TRL) of their current PIC should be 4 or higher. Proposals for proof-of-concept type demonstrators are not eligible.
4. The applicant should demonstrate a business case for scale-up to volume production and/or how the funded project will positively impact their future business, either through increased revenues or through the creation of new jobs.
5. The applicant should comply with the de-minimis criterion for state aid and provide a self-declaration to that end. A “De Minimis” award letter will be issued by the OIP4NWE consortium when complying.
6. The applicant should submit a fully completed “Voucher application form” and should sign a “Proxy NDA” to allow evaluation of the proposal by the OIP4NWE voucher selection committee.
7. Voucher recipients should agree to collaborate on documenting their use case. This is to be used as dissemination material to attract other users of the pilot line, during as well as after the project.

The North-West Europe region as defined by Interreg NWE, comprising of UK, Belgium, Switzerland, part of The Netherlands, part of Germany and part of France

The call for voucher applications has been opened open in January 2021 and applicants will have until 30/09/2021 to apply. The evaluation of the applications will start in October 2021 and the outcome will be announced in November 2021.
If there was insufficient interest or an insufficient amount of high-quality applications, a 2nd call for vouchers will be launched later on.

The selection committee will evaluate the voucher applications based on the “voucher application form” filled out by the candidate SMEs.

First of all, the selection committee will check the eligibility of the application. With respect to requirement criterion (3): the selection committee will give strong preference to applications at TRL 4 or higher, but in exceptional circumstances this requirement may be relaxed for new entrants that want to make use of the unique added value offered by OIP4NWE (e.g. need for external optics or microfluidics to be added to the PIC), or in case there would be an insufficient amount of applicants. With respect to requirement criterion (5): if the applicant complies with the minimis criterion for state aid, a “De Minimis” award letter will be issued by the selection committee.

If the application is eligible, it will be evaluated according to the criteria defined below. Each criterion is scored with a value from 0 (strongly underperforming) to 5 (excellent). Each criterion has a certain weight associated to it. The score is multiplied with this weight. The individual score of each criterion should be at least 2,5. The total score should be at least 20/30.

Evaluation criteria and associated weight:

• The innovative character of the project (weight 1):
  Is the proposed solution new to the market?
  Is the project creating valuable knowhow?
  Are PICs key enabling elements in this project?
• Technical feasibility and quality of the project plan (weight 1):
  Compatibility with the OIP4NWE pilot line?
  Current TRL level of the PIC?
  How should the PIC be interfaced with the outside world?
  Is the proposed technological approach in line with the project goals?
• Credibility and level of commitment of the company (weight 2):
  Level of financial commitment?
  Does the company have a proven track record of bringing new products/solutions to the market?
  Does the company have a proven track record of successfully completing public or public-private funded project?
• Added value on the business case and potential impact (weight 2):
  The target market (target customers/segments, purchasing decision-makers, …)?
  The market validation (experience and relationship of the company with these customers; is the target market an existing one or a new one?)?
  The route to market (what channels will the company use to sell and deliver its products to its target customers?)
  The value proposition (competitive positioning and unique selling point)?
  Financial aspects of the business plan (increase in revenues or new jobs created)?

The selection committee will also take into account geographical distribution in the NWE region as well as distribution over different application sectors of the voucher grantees.

Evaluation of the voucher applications will be done by the voucher selection committee, which will be composed by a representative of the following organizations:

The activities covered under the voucher scheme are deemed to be State aid since project partners are offering marketable services to the SMEs. The State aid is thus granted “downstream” by the project partners (which become “intermediaries”) offering the services. The de minimis rule allows for State aid relevant activities, but only those that are of minimal financial importance, up to a threshold during a rolling three-year period, subject to certain administrative steps being taken. (See Commission Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013 of 18 December 2013 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid Text with EEA relevance for more information.) The amount of de minimis aid granted to a single undertaking within the last 3 financial years cannot exceed €1.200.000 (€200.000 per Member State and 6 Member States are included in the North-West Europe programme).

The OIP4NWE project partner responsible for distributing de minimis aid is responsible for checking if an undertaking is entitled to receive de minimis aid and in which amount based on the de minimis self-declaration (which can be found here) to be provided by the voucher applicant.  The OIP4NWE project partner will prepare and send a letter to all undertakings which were granted de minimis aid, stating the amount of aid granted (which will be up to 50k€ as this is the maximum support offered by the vouchers).

A contribution of 20% will be required from the SME on the total project cost and 100% for anything above the 50k€ max support. This contribution can be in cash or in kind, in case an in kind contribution would make sense for the proposed project. It should in that case be in line with the technical description; in other words: there must be a technical contribution from the company to justify in kind contribution.

In case of an in cash contribution, the SME will be invoiced by the partner(s) providing the service, in proportion to the technical work to be carried out (front end, external optics, packaging). At the end of the project, a consensus report will have to be filled out by all involved parties in which the effective costs incurred will be described as well as the in kind contribution if applicable, to check if everything is in line with the budgeting that was done during the proposal phase.

It is strongly recommended that a meeting is organized prior to submission of the voucher application form with the technical representatives of the SME and the OIP4NWE service providers such that a detailed budgeting can be done of the technical work that is proposed in the application.

• Tyndall as a research partner can provide packaging for less than 5 (A project should package a first device to determine if the process meets the user requirements and only then proceed to complete remaining devices)
• PICs must be pre-tested prior to packaging

• Packaging design (optical, electrical and mechanical design)
• Fibre attach to PICs (single and fibre arrays)
• Flip-chip of electronic ICs (including gold stud bumping and solder sphere jetting)

Ideally 1 to 12 optical ports (higher port numbers are possible with prior agreement)

It is not necessary that the voucher request makes use of the entire pilot line, so it is perfectly possible to only request a selection of the offered services. The requests which require the full pilot line will however be scored higher on the aspect “Technical feasibility and quality of the project plan” (see question 5)

It is critical the SME follows packaging design rules and this can be part of the design service activity.

In principle, the requirements state that the applicant should have a design ready and a validated prototype. If a PIC design is available, but interfacing of the PIC with the outside world through external optics is requested, VUB can perform the design of the optics (in addition to the fabrication thereof).

In principle, Tyndall can provide packaging of micro-optics to PICs but this will need to be evaluated on a case by case basis to determine if the packaging process is feasible.

In principle, Tyndall would not support packaging of devices which do not follow packaging design rules; this would need to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

Ideally, the required components should be available off-the-shelf or require a low degree of customization. Custom-designed components are also possible but this will have a strong impact on the total cost of the service.

The devices will be tested prior to shipping to ensure they meet our guaranteed processes, and if any device needs rework due to damage in transit or mishandling this rework would be excluded from the voucher work.

Integrated photonics is the emerging technology where the manipulation of light takes place on a chip, making the components an order of magnitude cheaper, smaller and more energy-efficient compared to today’s solutions.

To show the great impact of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) on the markets and to illustrate the high potential of this technological approach, the OIP4NWE consortium invites you to series of webinars, where stakeholders from different PIC application fields give insights in technological demands and opportunities and discuss the improvements by using the PIC technology.

In the following OIP4NWE WebTalk „Photonic Integrated Chips for 5G/6G“ Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Stöhr, CEO of Microwave Photonics GmbH, will give an insight into the use of the millimeter-wave (mmW) and terahertz (THz) frequency spectrum for wireless communications which are part of the international 5G regulation and will play an even more dominant role in future 6G terahertz communications. The low phase noise generation of broadband mmW and THz radio waveforms, their low-loss and phase-stable transport over fiber (radio-over-fiber, RoF) for backhauling and fronthauling, and the ability to steer mmW and THz beams by optical means represent some of the key use cases for Microwave Photonic (MWP) Integrated Chips.

The OIP4NWE WebTalk takes place at

Wednesday, 7 July 2021, 10:00 – 11:00 (CEST).

Agenda

Welcome and introduction (5 min.)
Marija Trajkovic
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

Photonic Integrated Chips for 5G/6G (20 min.)
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Stöhr
Microwave Photonics GmbH

Open discussion (20 min.)

Introduction of the Innovation Support Fund and how to apply (5 min.)
Prof. Jürgen van Erps
Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Integrated photonics is the emerging technology where the manipulation of light takes place on a chip, making the components an order of magnitude cheaper, smaller and more energy-efficient compared to today’s solutions.

To show the great impact of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) on the markets and to illustrate the high potential of this technological approach, the OIP4NWE consortium invites you to series of webinars, where stakeholders from different PIC application fields give insights in technological demands and opportunities and discuss the improvements by using the PIC technology.

In the OIP4NWE WebTalk „PICs for LIDAR systems“ Davide Canavesi from Scantinel Photonics will give an exciting insight into coherent (FMCW) LiDAR to generate three-dimensional images of the environment, providing a reliable basis for autonomous navigation. The SCANTINEL PHOTONICS' LiDAR technology combines coherent ranging, silicon photonics and advanced optics on a solid-state platform. This enables accurate detection of the vehicle's environment combined with high range, reliability, compactness and low cost.

The WebTalk takes place at Wednesday, 2nd June 2021, 10:00 – 11:00 (CEST).

Agenda

Welcome and introduction (5 min.)
Marija Trajkovic
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

Coherent (FMCW) LiDAR system (20 min.)
Davide Canavesi
Scantinel Photonics GmbH

Open discussion (20 min.)

Introduction of the Innovation Support Fund and how to apply (5 min.)
Prof. Jürgen van Erps
Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Integrated photonics is the emerging technology where the manipulation of light takes place on a chip, making the components an order of magnitude cheaper, smaller and more energy-efficient compared to today’s solutions.

To show the great impact of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) on the markets and to illustrate the high potential of this technological approach, the OIP4NWE consortium invites you to series of webinars, where stakeholders from different PIC application fields give insights in technological demands and opportunities and discuss the improvements by using the pic technology.

In the OIP4NWE WebTalk „PICs for fiber optic sensing applications“ Jelmer Weda (PhotonFirst) will give an exciting insight into integrated optical solutions for optical sensors.

The WebTalk takes place at Wednesday, 31th March 2021, 10:00 – 11:00 (CEST).

Agenda

Welcome and introduction (5 min.)
Marija Trajkovic
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

Measuring with light - Fiber optic sensing applications (20 min.)
Jelmer Weda
PhotonFirst

PhotonFirst is expert in measuring the world with light. The talk is about the use of fiber optics sensors in combination with the most advanced and in-house developed interrogator systems based on Photonics Integrated Circuits using spectrometry and interferometry principles for improved resolution, minitiaturization, reduced energy consumption and cost.

Open discussion (20 min.)

Introduction of the Innovation Support Fund and how to apply (5 min.)
Prof. Jürgen van Erps
Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Press on the picture to download the presentation slides

Integrated photonics is the emerging technology where the manipulation of light takes place on a chip, making the components an order of magnitude cheaper, smaller and more energy-efficient compared to today’s solutions.

An open innovation pilot line for InP-based Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) is currently being established in Europe. All three parts of the pilot line – PIC manufacturing, external optics, packaging - and the technical details will be presented by the partners in this WebTalk. Get in-depth first-hand information on how to get the most out of the pilot line for your business.

An additional innovation support fund launched for SMEs. The call for proposals of the OIP4NWE project will be explained and all questions from interested SMEs will be answered by the consortium during the WebTalk.

The OIP4NWE WebTalk takes place at Wednesday, 10th February 2021, 10:00 – 12:00 (CET).

Agenda

Welcome and introduction
Dr. Victor Dolores-Calzadilla
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

Manufacturing of Photonic Integrated Circuits
Nazanin Shafiee
SMART Photonics

Optical interfacing of PICs with the outside world
Prof. Jürgen van Erps
Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Integrated Photonics Packaging
Donal Behal
Tyndall National Institute

Introduction of the Innovation Support Fund and how to apply
Prof. Jürgen van Erps
Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Open discussion

Press on the picture to download the presentation slides

Integrated photonics is the emerging technology where the manipulation of light takes place on a chip, making the components an order of magnitude cheaper, smaller and more energy-efficient compared to today’s solutions.

To show the great impact of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) on the markets and to illustrate the high potential of this technological approach, the OIP4NWE consortium invites you to series of webinars, where stakeholders from different PIC application fields give insights in technological demands and opportunities and discuss the improvements by using the pic technology.

In the OIP4NWE WebTalk „PICs for Medical Devices and in Life Science applications“ Prof. Wolfgang Drexler (Medical University Vienna) and Prof. C. Ronda (Philips) will give an exciting insight into integrated optical solutions for Medical Devices and Life Science Applications.

Agenda

Welcome (10 min.)
Dr. Victor Dolores-Calzadilla - Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

Towards Optical Coherence Tomography on a Chip (15 min.)
Prof. Wolfgang Drexler - Center of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University Vienna, Austria

In the last three decades optical coherence tomography (OCT) has established itself as a unique non-invasive, optical medical diagnostic imaging modality, enabling unprecedented in vivo cross-sectional tomographic visualization of internal microstructure in a variety of biological systems. Ophthalmology has been the most successful and commercially most active medical field for OCT so far, but several other OCT applications, e.g. in cardiology, dentistry, gastroenterology or dermatology, are on the verge of expanding their market comparable to or larger than that of ophthalmology.
Recently OCT has also been based on photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology to not only reduce footprint, but also to enable miniaturized, maintenance free operation in a variety of new applications.

Photonic integration and societal challenges (15 min.)
Prof. Cees Ronda – Philips

Sensors are the interface between the physical and the digital world. In this talk, I will address sensor approaches and some sensor challenges that Philips faces in improving people’s lives.

Open Discussion (15 min.)
Giuseppe Coppola – PhotonDelta

OIP4NWE Voucher Introduction (15 min.)
Prof. Jürgen van Erps - Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Press on the picture to download the presentation slides

Integrated photonics is the emerging technology where the manipulation of light takes place on a chip, making the components an order of magnitude cheaper, smaller and more energy-efficient compared to today’s solutions.

To show the great impact of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) on the markets and to illustrate the high potential of this technological approach, the OIP4NWE consortium invites you to series of webinars, where stakeholders from different PIC application fields give insights in technological demands and opportunities and discuss the improvements by using the pic technology.

In the OIP4NWE WebTalk „Optical solutions for radio access networks: where could integrated photonics help?“ Mr. Antonio Tartaglia, system manager and technology expert from Ericsson will give an exciting insight into optical solutions for radio access networks.

The OIP4NWE WebTalk „Optical solutions for radio access networks: where could integrated photonics help?" starts at

Wednesday, 27th January 2021, 10:00 (CET).

Agenda

Welcome (10 min.)
Dr. Victor Dolores-Calzadilla - Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

Optical solutions for radio access networks: where could integrated photonics help? (20 min.)
Antonio Tartaglia
System Manager and Technology Expert – Ericsson

The talk will cover state of the art and future challenges in optical transmission solutions for Radio Access Networks, touching on similarities and differences with solutions for data centers and indicating the areas in which integrated photonics could come to the rescue.”

Open Discussion (15 min.)
Giuseppe Coppola – PhotonDelta

OIP4NWE Voucher Introduction (15 min.)
Prof. Jürgen van Erps - Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Press on the picture to download the presentation slides