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18 Jun 2025
Collaboration is expecting to start construction on €153 million project by the end of 2025.
Europe is set to gain a new manufacturing line capable of fabricating photonic devices on 6-inch diameter indium phosphide (InP) wafers.
Construction of the pilot line, funded partly via the European Union’s Chips Act, is scheduled to start at TNO's High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, by the end of this year.
Aside from European Chips Act funding, the €153 million effort is being supported by PhotonDelta, the Dutch ministries of economic affairs and defense, and the TNO research organization.
Powerful ecosystem
The project is part of the wider European integrated photonics initiative called PIXEurope, which was selected for €400 million in funding in November 2024, and is coordinated by Barcelona’s Institute for Photonic Sciences (ICFO).
Once operational the Eindhoven pilot line will provide a significant increase in scale and manufacturing efficiency compared with existing 4-inch InP wafer fabs that currently provide the majority of production capacity.
The idea is that Dutch companies such as SMART Photonics will use the facilities, thereby strengthening the entire Dutch ecosystem around photonic chips.
TNO managing director Ton van Mol said in a release from the institution: ‘‘This 6-inch pilot line is a game-changer for Dutch companies and the future earning power and prosperity for the Netherlands.
“It is a critical part of a powerful ecosystem in photonic chips with which the Netherlands can distinguish itself worldwide.”
Innovation to industrialization
The new InP pilot line represents the latest in a series of photonics-related developments at TNO, which last month launched the Holst Centre Photonics Lab, a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to integrated photonics research and development established in collaboration with the Belgian electronics research center imec.
Aiming to bridge the gap between innovation and industrialization for applications in sectors including automotive, healthcare, and data communications, the laboratory is also located at Eindhoven’s High Tech Campus and partly funded by PhotonDelta.
PhotonDelta CEO Eelko Brinkhoff described the new laboratory as “a key proof point of integrated photonics emerging as a critical enabling technology”, adding that it would provide the essential infrastructure to accelerate the development and deployment of applications using photonic chips.
Back in April TNO won further support from the European Commission for its role in the €15 million “PhotonHub PHACTORY” project led by Brussels Photonics (B-PHOT) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium.
The initiative is intended to help SMEs and startups move to scale faster, building on the success of the earlier “ACTPHAST” effort pioneered by Hugo Thienpont and colleagues at VUB.
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