FlexLab: Photonic integrated circuit

2024: Photon integrated circuit development

The laboratory electronic engineers "" FlexLab(a joint project of the Northwestern Nanocenter, the Group "" and Rusnano the University) ITMO has developed a photon integrated circuit with a high degree of integration of control devices. The development allows you to combine all sensor control units on a single monolithic basis, which minimizes, and in some cases completely eliminates, the need to purchase expensive external microcircuits to ensure the operation of the electronic device. The developer announced this on May 16, 2024.

source = FlexLab

The photon integrated circuit (IC) created in the company is applicable in fluoroscopy, devices for data biometrics, non-destructive testing devices for diagnosing the technical condition of objects.

In the Russian market, our development will be of interest to manufacturers of medical devices, enterprises of the aircraft industry, manufacturers and providers of IoT. All these companies use mainly foreign components and are looking for opportunities to switch to a domestic electronic component base. Our technological solution fully satisfies this request: the developed sensor with integrated control units not only contributes to solving import substitution problems, but also creates a reserve for the country's technological leadership in the microelectronics segment, "said Andrey Sibryaev, director of FlexLab.

The creation of the photosensor was carried out using a number of technologies, but the designed architecture of the electronic device makes special development. The photosensor chip consists of a photosensitive pixel array, an integrated row driver, and a column multiplexer. The matrix converts the light signal into an electrical signal by sequentially reading the lines. The row driver provides top-down matrix scans. The multiplexer is used to organize a data pipeline and reduce external connections.

This design minimizes the number of external chips required to control the sensor. All blocks are part of a single matrix made using the technology of metal oxide semiconductor materials IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide). This is a completely new generation of light-sensitive integrated circuits that will help minimize the cost of the final product and increase its reliability, "said Pavel Novoselov, leading design engineer at FlexLab.

The development team worked on the creation of the photonic integrated circuit for 18 months. The production of the pilot sample was carried out at the production of the Russian Center for Flexible Electronics (part of the TechnoSpark group).