The Tyndall National Institute is Ireland’s largest research centre. The institute is part of University College Cork and is located in the southern part of Ireland. Tyndall has a very strong track record in both coordinating and partnering in European projects over many years. The institute also has very strong links with industry, through working on European and Nationally funded research projects and programmes directly funded by industry. Tyndall has a large business development, contracts and legal team to support all stages of industry engagement, including contract negotiation, IP management and project management. The institute also has an industry-in- residence programme to encourage industry partners to locate their key R&D personnel in its laboratories and to collaborate with Tyndall’s researchers. Tyndall’s key areas of research include; photonics, microsystems, nanotechnology, advanced theory and modelling. The institute has state-of-the-art compound semiconductor materials growth (MOVPE) and device processing facilities, and a full CMOS fabrication facility which specializes in the development and manufacture of advanced MEMs components. The institute hosts the recently funded 30M€ Science Foundation Ireland, Irish Photonics Integration Centre (www.ipic.ie), which includes a large number of industry partners across a wide range of application areas. Photonics is the largest research centre at Tyndall, with over 130 fulltime researchers and students. The centre supports research from theory and design, through to device fabrication, packaging and advanced system test and characterization.

Main tasks in PICTURE: 

The Tyndall National Institute will coordinate the packaging activities in the project while leading the Work Package associated with PIC design, prototyping and assessment. This will allow Tyndall to implement packaging design rules at a very early stage in the project, providing an efficient path to packaged devices. Tyndall’s technical expertise will be utilized in 4 key areas: mechanical package development, fibre coupling (laser welding), thermal modelling and critically, EIC to PIC 3D co-integration. This expertise will be applied to each photonic package developed during the project. Tyndall will also support the high-speed RF/PCB design tasks lead by Argotech.

The Photonics Packaging and Integration Group is led by Prof. Peter O’Brien. The group was established in 2009, has 18 fulltime researchers and 2 PhD students. The group has grown rapidly and formed a large number of international collaborations with both industry and academia, and is recognized for its ability to convert research results generated in the laboratory to commercialization. The group has also formed collaborations with numerous PIC initiatives in Europe, including ePIXfab, Europractice and JePPIX, where they support advanced assembly and packaging requirements for users of these MPW services. They have also prepared the world’s first set of packaging design rules and collaborated with Phoenix and Luceda Photonics to incorporate these into their software design kits. The group is now leading the world’s first open-access Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) Assembly and Packaging Pilot line, PIXAPP. PIXAPP consists of a highly-interdisciplinary team of Europe’s leading industrial & research organizations and provides users with single-point access to PIC assembly and

Persons who will be primarily responsible for carrying out research and innovation activities.

• Peter O’Brien (male) received his PhD in physics from University College Cork (Ireland) in 1999. He was a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology (US) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US). His business expertise includes founding two photonic companies, the second of which he grew from start-up to a successful company sale in 5 years (2004-09). This company focused on developing speciality optical systems for medical device, speciality machine vision and bio-imaging applications. Prof O’Brien’s additional industrial experience includes manager of large Silicon fabrication facility (General Semiconductor Corporation), and advisor to a number of venture capital companies, with a particular focus on investments in photonic start-up companies. Prof. O’Brien established the Photonics Packaging and Integration Group at Tyndall, and since its foundation 6 years ago, has become a world leader in providing advanced photonic packaging solutions to industry. His previous industrial experience, in both small and large companies, provides him with the ability to understand industry needs and their particular need for complete packaging solutions. He has partnered in multiple EU (FP7 and H2020) projects, where his group has taken the lead role in packaging activities. Prof. O’Brien is deputy director of the Irish Photonics Integration Centre, a 30M€ investment by the Irish government in the area of integrated photonics. In addition, Prof. O’Brien is Director of the recently funded PIXAPP Pilot Line.
• Padraic Morrissey (male) is a researcher at the Photonic-Packaging Group in the Tyndall National Institute, focusing on the design of new optical and electrical packaging schemes for Si and InP based photonic systems. He received his BSc. in Physics from University College Cork (UCC), Ireland in 2009. In 2014, he received his PhD in Physics from the Tyndall National Institute with a thesis entitled “Photonic Integrated Circuits for the Generation of Coherent Optical Signals”. Before joining the Photonic Packaging Group, he worked on PIC research and development in the Integrated Photonics Group at Tyndall.
• Moises Jezzini (male) completed a B.Sc. in Physics and an M.Sc. in Electronic systems from Tec de Monterrey in Mexico. His master thesis dealt with the propagation of special beams in conical structures. Moises worked 2 years as a test engineer and 5 years as a manufacturing product engineer in the optoelectronics industry at CyOptics/Avago working with 10G/40G/100G receivers and transmitters. Moises is now finishing a PhD in Tyndall working in the microwave design of high-speed multilayer interposers for the packaging of PICs.

Previous projects and activities, connected to PICTURE

• WP leader for PIX4Life (H2020-ICT-688519) (www.pix4life.eu)
• WP leader for Plat4M (FP7-ICT-318178) (www.plat4m-fp7.eu)
• Technical Coordination Team for ACTPHAST (FP7-ICT-619205) (www.actphast.eu)
• WP leader for TIPS (H2020-ICT-644453) (www.tips2020.eu)
• WP leader for CARDIS (H2020-ICT-644798) (www.cardis-h2020.eu)
• WP leader for FABULOUS (FP7-ICT-318704) (www.fabulous-project.eu)
• PIXAAP Packaging Pilot Line Gateway Lead (www.pixapp.eu)

The group has established an impressive range of capabilities including; fibre optical packaging, micro-optical assembly, semi-and fully-automatic flip-chip bonding with submicron precision, micro solder deposition using jetting technology ball and ribbon wire-bonding. These capabilities have enabled the group to delivery full packaging solutions to many companies and academic researchers. Critically, the group supports multiple industrial sectors, with particularly strong collaborations in the areas of communications, medical devices and sensors.

I don’t have vacations approaching and Padraic is currently in annual leave returning on August 8th.