Photonics, the Next Generation Communication Processors

Is there a need for a photonic iPhones and smartphones? We have a very interesting topic today with our guest Daniel Pérez López, the CTO and Co-Founder of iPRONICS, programmable photonics.

“When we refer to programmable photonics, we are referring to the ability of first being able to integrate light signals into a semiconductor chip that is widely known as integrated photonics, integrated optics.” -Daniel Perez Lopez

Tune in now and watch through the end, you wouldn’t want to miss this!

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Show Highlights:

• introduction to Daniel Perez Lopez Co-founder and CTO of iPronics
• What are programmable photonics?
• The photonic field or the integrated photonic field, is mainly limited to two key volume driven market segments that are transceivers and data centers
• One of the growing benefits of photonics is to ability to configure systems, real-timebases on the specific environmental condition and specific performance
• Photonics technology as a complimentary technology to electronics
• Daniel describes the structure of iPronics’s photonics processor and how it functions
• iPronics has figured out miniaturization, they believe that reducing the form factor is a way to open their product to the bigger market
• Is there a need for a photonic iPhones and smartphones with pure photonics processor?
• Daniel enumerates the various photonics applications including in RF systems
• Cointegration of lasers with with the photonics integrated circuits is no longer rocket science
• Enhanced technology, sooner than later; integrating high performance photo ejector in the chip is no longer a challenge
• Lasers sound cool, but miniaturization or focusing on the form factor and delivering high performing systems are more of a priority
• Is there any iPronics product currently available off the shelf for integration?
• iPronics is focusing on communications space for optical based communications and management for RF communications and the processing intra data center communications

Links and Resources:

• Read Related Articles:
  • Silicon Photonics Integration Challenges in PCB Design
  • Quantum Computing Electronics vs. Photonics: New Chips Will Shift the Balance
  • Optical Interconnects in PCB Design: Progress in 2020 and Beyond
• Connect with Daniel Pérez López on LinkedIn
• Visit iPronics website

Transcript:

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Exactly. It's a matter of cost. It is a matter of time, and it's a matter also of the performance that a programmable photonic device enables. So, beyond prototyping or fast development, we at iPronics certainly believe that there is something else beyond these benefits.

Zach Peterson:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Altium On Track podcast. I'm your host, Zach Peterson. Today we're talking with Daniel Perez Lopez, co-founder and CTO of iPronics. This is an interesting area that is of course a passion of mine. Today we'll be talking about photonics and specifically photonic programmable photonic chips. Daniel, thank you so much for joining us today.

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Thank you. It's a pleasure.

Zach Peterson:

Yes, so folks that know me or that have watched the show or any of my other videos for a while know that I came from optics and then went into electronics, and what you do, I think is a little bit of a fusion between optics and electronics. So maybe tell us what iPronics does, what your product is.

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Perfect. So yeah, I think that just to explain the concept, when we refer to programmable photonics, we are referring to the ability of first being able to integrate light signals into a semiconductor chip that is widely known as integrated photonics, integrated optics. It's the field that allows us to have transceivers for internet connections for data centers and so on. But when we have the key word programmable, we are referring to something else, which is the expansion of the field to provide the ability to program light based sequence. So just to give a specific example, a photonic integrity secret today and during the last, I would say 20 years looks like a chip where we integrate weight guides rather than wires. So we are able to integrate optical signals, get them into an optical chip, and we are able to perform some processing within this photonic integrated secret.

But what we are in enabling is the programmability of this signal. So there is a parallelism that we can use here, which is field programmable gator array, a programmable logic device in electronics versus an application specific integrated secret in electronics. So iPronics will be providing this programmable FPGA like homologue, but in this case with photonic integrated secret rather than with electronics.

Zach Peterson:

So I think this implies that most photonic integrated circuits up until now were static essentially like Asics, like you say.

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Correct. So as I mentioned then the photonic field or the integrated photonic field, it's mainly limited to two keel key volume driven market segments that are transceivers and data centers. So the generation of equipment circuitry that allows us to move data in the optical networks and within the data centers. But the technology has been maturing during the last 30 years and has been demonstrated being competitive with among different application fields from LIDAR to optical processing in other fields like for example, quantum photonics or more classic oriented operations. It's also when known, for example, that you can use RF signal processing generation and detection with assisted by photonic integrity sequence. And there is also an opportunity there for integration of these systems and components.

However, since we are all constrained or the technology is constrained to application specific designs, then the time to market time for development, it's really high and there are only a few of companies that can actually invest on these kinds of long iteration cycles. However, the addition of a programmable photonic device in the same way that it happens with the FPAs in electronics, it's an opportunity to reduce drastically these time for development times and also the overall cost related to the development of a photonic integrated based product.

Zach Peterson:

I see. So the market really needs a programmable solution simply due to I guess the limited size of the market, especially for Asics, either the processing and fabrication costs come way down for all those application specific photonics or you have to have a programmable solution in order to get it out to market.

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a matter of cost. It is a matter of time and it's a matter of also of the performance that a programmable photonic device enables. So beyond prototyping or fast development, we at iPronics certainly believe that there is something else beyond these benefits. For example, just to put some concrete applications, if you think about, let's say for example, a front end RF system that demands some kind of adaptability to notability, flexibility, if you are thinking about next generation 5G 6G basis stations, there is a high demand on adaptability and being able to reconfigure your system on real time based on the specific environmental conditions or based on a specific performance that you need to get at one time or on another. So program photonics, it's going even beyond cost and time for development reduction. It's also about key performance that will enable next generation communication systems or processors.

Zach Peterson:

So speaking of next generation processors, one area where I repeatedly see that type of processor come up, whether it's a quantum processor or a photonic processor or a quantum photonic processor is AI processing. So specialized chips that could go into the data center that can interface directly with an optical link between servers and then they have very high compute and they can process all of this data for AI, is that the type of market you're targeting or are you targeting maybe smaller devices that need high compute that can benefit from this type of solution versus say an FPGA small processor for a variety of reasons?

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Yeah, that's certainly a good question. There are many companies in the field now today that most of them were born like in the last, I would say decade or even five years, that are pursuing these raise for photonic AI hardware, photonic AI software. There is a discussion within the community, both industry, academia where everyone is trying to analyze what is the real benefit of photonic technology. As you mentioned, it's direct substitution of what we perform nowadays by digital means, it's comparative technology that allows us to compliment where electronics, it's not able to deliver. We certainly believe that photonics technology is complementary technology to electronics. It's in most cases or on a specific application cases, it's no sense to try to substitute technology that is already performing well for a specific functionality. So rather than reinventing the wheel for something that works, actually people, practitioners, programmable photonics engineers, photonics engineers, designer and companies will be targeting what is actually producing the next generation performance.

In terms of, for example, you mentioned AI. With the AI, you can try to target the multiply and accumulate data in the photonic domain or you can try to focus on the interconnects, the data movement between the different resources, DPU and other systems in computing clusters for example, is an open discussion that is today in the community. From iPronics, what we are focused on our first three years has been being able to deliver something tangible to our customers. I think that we are one of the few companies that is actually serving products to customers nowadays rather than trying to invent the future. So we are already delivering in the present and that allows us to receive direct feedback from companies. Our customers working on many different fields, some of them in communications, some of them in pure signal processing, some of them in RF photonics signal processing, and some of them even in computing. So we are very close to all these markets and getting feedback from them and working on our next generation products already based on this feedback.

Zach Peterson:

So when you say someone's going to use one of your systems or one of your products, I think when someone hears photonic integrated circuit, they're going to try and put this into let's say a PCB or put it into an electronics assembly and they're going to say, well, how do I get an optical interface into the chip? How do I get signals into the chip? Is there an electrical interface or is it all optical?

Daniel Perez Lopez:

That's a great question. So our photonic processors today looks like a rack system where we have embedded all you need there. So basically all the control electronics that are required to drive the processor, we have all the optical interfaces, we have some logic within the device. We have in summary, the photonic layer, the electronic layer, and the software layer on top of everything. So what we are enabling our users, and we recognize that we are also measuring it, like some of them have a strong background in physics, photonics and optical equipment in general. Some of them have never heard about photonics, so they want to use the system as a black box. In this case, what we have done is develop a software development kit that allows our promo photonic developers, customers, users to use the technology without the need of being experts in the field.

So if they have a general programming background, they can use our library software development kits to program their optical interconnects, optical switches, optical beam splitters. So they are able to tune the amplitude on the face of the light if they want to get at that level. But at the same time, if they just want to keep high on a system member perspective, I just want an optical switch router or an optical filter. They just put the specifications and the system gets programmed for them. From an interaction perspective, you can get your signals in and out by means of optical fiber connectors. So we have work on a specific interfaces to connect these optical fibers with the photonic integrated secrets with fiber array. And you also ask about the interfaces. We are already developing a system that allows you to program RF signals as well. So being able to mix RF high speed signals together with optical signals. So in that sense the interfaces looks like RF connectors, fiber arrays, and then a communication port to communicate with the logic of the device.

Zach Peterson:

So with this being a rack system, I think that makes sense for the data center environment where everything is in racks. That makes sense. Another area where it makes sense is military embedded. They'll go out in the field, they'll set up racks and do basically the same thing as a data center, just smaller scale, and I'm sure we can come up with some other examples. Now, with it being a rack system, of course it's very large, not portable unless you're going to roll around a rack with a portable power supply. How do you take that and then maybe scale it down and eventually bring this technology to smaller devices that don't have to be rack mounted? Is that possible? Is that something you have on the roadmap? What do you think about that possibility?

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Yeah, it's certainly the question. I mentioned before that probably we are one of the few companies in the market that has been able to deliver something and that has been our decision making process, our motto all the time, being able to put this in the market as early as possible so our users, customers can actually enjoy the technology sooner than later. It is better to have something rack based in 2022 rather than waiting for 2026 to have something with a smaller form factor. So we basically decided that that was the way to go. And that being said, we already have work on the miniaturization of the device.

Most of the issues or what all the issues, the challenges that comes together with form factor reduction has been already mitigated from our side. Our next generations are going to be smaller and smaller till and being able to reach fundamental limits. Now I don't think that the fundamental limits are nearby in the future. As you mentioned, being able to miniaturize the device two x per year, it's not something crazy. And as you mentioned, we really believe that reducing the form factor is also a way to open doors to additional market segments. Today, rack based equipment allows you to be in laboratories in universities, in companies, in data centers, but miniaturizing the form factor for sure allows you to democratize even more the technology. So yeah, that's totally in alignment with the company.

Zach Peterson:

Yeah, there's one joke I often make about quantum, which is that it would be really great if we could have a quantum iPhone, but you have to take all of that cooling system and the chip itself and miniaturize it to iPhone form factor. So this of course makes me wonder if one day we'll have photonic iPhone or photonic Galaxy if you're a Samsung user.

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Yeah, probably that's aligned with one of my previous comments is trying to reinvent what is already working very nice. For example, why? Then the question would be why do we need a photonic smartphone? Is what type of problem are we trying to solve? Of course today we have this display, which is photonics technology for the screen. Some of the mobile phones has photonic based sensors, but if we are referring to photonic smartphone and something that totally replace the processor by a pure photonic processor, I don't think that we have that need today. So what we are focusing now is on, again, hearing the market, what are the actual needs? So far no one has asked for a photonic based phone, so we are trying to focus on, yeah, as you mentioned, getting better form factors, improving the technology overall and enabling the next generation.

For example, I think since you mentioned phones, one area that we believe that for program photonics is of great interest is next generation 5G, 6G communication stations. We really believe that the adaptability, the flexibility that is demanded by the new protocols and also having a system that you need two years to upgrade from a hardware perspective do not go well with something that is asked to be extremely flexible, upgradable from next generation protocol to the next generation protocol. Having the possibility of just software updates your hardware, and that's only possible with programmable photonics.

Zach Peterson:

Well, you brought up the analog to an FPGA with programmable photonics, right? So I guess someone might rightfully ask, well, why would an FPGA fail in that application? Why does a programmable photonic chip have the advantage?

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Yeah, yeah. So that's a great question. Then we get into the territory of comparing the benefits of photonics versus electronics generally not versus other photonics approaches. And to that question then, where photonics excel, it's in a wide variety of areas. Like for example, if you are using photonics for assisting RF systems, photonics allows you to provide flexibility log, for example, being able to create a reconfigurable filter that is able to work with signals at let's say 28 gigahertz, 37 gigahertz, 10 gigahertz, five gigahertz. Being able to do that in a reconfigurable way with RF systems is a real challenge. So being able to have an RF filter that you can filter in the RF domain directly or RF dash electronic domain, being able to reconfigure the bandwidth and at the same time the central frequency is a challenge for current RF systems today.

That's something that potentially photonics can help. Why? Because you are using a modulator. You get your signal from the RF domain to the photonic domain where you have all the flexibility that you need, and then you can get back to the RF or millimeter wave domain to have your signal converted and processed. Similarly, you may want to have fiber channel to antenna connections, and then in that case, your interface is already optical. So if you want to solve that with an electronic FPGA or an electronic engine, you need to down convert your optical signal current domain before doing any kind of processing.

If you have the signal that is coming already in the optical domain, you can benefit from that and perform some processing there with massive pre configurability. If you are based on fiber rather than on in electronics wiring, you can also benefit from low loss distribution loss and then you can distribute your signal on different fibers and areas. Of course, this conversation depends on the applications that we are focusing. In this case, we are talking about opportunities for future basis stations and 5G, 6G communications, but the same will go with other applications.

Zach Peterson:

So you brought up, or you mentioned the interface between RF in photonics, and we're already talking about the interface between electronics and photonics, and I think for some folks that can be a bit difficult, but at least there's an analog there for LEDs and photo diodes and things like that that are a bit more intuitive. But how do you get to that interface between RF and photonics? Are you doing RF over fiber but on the chip?

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Yeah, that's a good question. So the two key interfaces that you need to match the worlds of RF and photonics, as you mentioned, is modulator, where you have an RF input to the modulator and then the modulator has a laser, and at the output of the modulator, what you have is the modulated signal that basically carries the optical carrier as a challenge support, and then you have your information now has jumped from few guards to the optical domain, which is extremely high frequencies. So if you compare the input and the output of the modulator, now you jump to 193 terahertz.

You are now in the optical domain. You perform on the processing, and then if you have a photo ejector, you can get the beating of the signal with the carrier and get the signal back to the RF domain. That's how the two basics interfaces. For someone that is not familiar with this, typically you need actually a driver and to get the secret or a secret that allows you to move your RF signal into the modulator, basically you need to impedance match with 50 arms depending on the modulator that you have to up convert the signal to the optical domain. And similarly to the photo diode. You also need to have some transceiver that's amplifier if you want to have your photo converted from the optical domain electronic domain, and then being able to amplify the signal to get a good signal one.

Zach Peterson:

Okay. So the other thing you mentioned is that you're essentially modulating a laser signal, if I heard you correctly. And the other thing that I think people will think when they hear that is that this is all in the visible domain, but it's not in the visible domain. This is all at fiber wavelengths, standard fiber wavelengths, correct?

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's right. So then what is within the chip today in our devices, we are incorporating the programmable photonic processing logic. All the, it's not only the reconfigurable optical core, but also some passive components, some reconfigurable IP blocks, that's probably like the other application specific blocks are all together within our photonic integrity secrets. It's our laser today is not within the photonic integrity secret, but again, the technology, the integrated photonic technology has been maturing considerably during the last 10 years regarding the cointegration of lasers with the photonic integrated circuits. So it's not rocket science anymore being able to put laser cointegrated with the chip. And to your question, if you have a radio or fiber system, that means that a portion of the system is distributed, so you have an optical fiber that is connected two points. It might be a transmitter in a base station or a central office, it might be a receiver in an antenna or somewhere else.

These two points are connected through an optical link or these can be also within a data center. You may have an optical fiber connecting one back together with the other. In this case, we are talking about short reach communications or long reach communications, and the rationale behind is similar. We are using an optical path to being able to transition a light signal that carries information, and this information has been generated through a transceiver that basically, or an external modulator that generates this signal from the other domain to the optical domain. Then we go through the fiber, we get to the final part of the link, we don't convert the signal, and we can now back again to the electronic domain being able to use it. Today, the high speed modulators, high speed photo detectors is a technology, is a component that can be integrated within the chip and in our programmable photonic sequence, we are integrating as well, high speed modulators and photo detectors.

Zach Peterson:

So in terms of the structure of the chip, right, I get that you're integrating more of the high speed modulators and things like this onto the chip, but then you brought up light sources and then light detectors as well as one of the challenges of integration. I was at a IEEE photonics conference about four years ago, and there was an entire panel just on this topic of how to integrate light sources and light detectors onto silicon photonics, and that was in 2019. So what has the progress been since then? Because back then they were still talking about do we switch everything over to Saega? Do we do two six photonics? What is the progress been in that?

Daniel Perez Lopez:

So regarding detectors, I don't think that that is a problem anymore. It's well known that within silica photonics what you do is integrate your manual at your manual layer. So these material is reachable for getting good performing photo detectors on the chip to create your receivers, and that is a compatible material with all the process baseline and so on. So integrating high performance photo ejector in the chip, it's not a challenge. Indeed, they're getting better and better in terms of responsivity, dark current. So the two key metrics for the key communication balance. Regarding the laser, it's something that we decided that our first generation products will not go with the cointegration of the lasers in the system. The first motivation is we don't need it in order to have a fully functional device. As I mentioned, we got to the essentials to make sure that the product that we were delivering the first commercially available programmable photonic processor allows our users to get the technology enhanced sooner than later.

The cointegration with laser will come once we know that this is actually the next step to get on a specific form factor target and so on. But certainly for the form factors that we are considering for the future with, you might think about a board science integration, still a laser can be integrated in a butterfly like form factor and you can introduce that easily. And at the same time we are talking, there are at least three foundries, three of the key foundries in the world already that either offer it or are starting to offer the cointegration of lasers within the systems. The level of maturities are technology that has been there for let's say a couple of years. So it will take a little bit more time to get fully stable processes and the deals as high as possible. And in the meantime, we continue working on where we actually add value, which is in the software layer of programmable photonics and in the next generation products. Based on programmable photonics.

Zach Peterson:

Have customers started demanding or asking that you do that level of integration, or are customers still getting used to what they can even build with photonic chips and a large photonic processor like this?

Daniel Perez Lopez:

So I think that I have get many, many time, I have gotten the question of if we integrate or not our laser source. My answer is always like, which form factor do you need? Rather than let's focus on what we can integrate or what we cannot integrate is what's the actual form factor? Let's understand what are the targets, the goals, the limits. And our team has been working for three years on miniaturizing the key parts of the system that needs to be miniaturized. So we have been working on miniaturizing, all the control electronics, the logics, the photonic integrated circuit to improve the densities, the packaging, all the different things that are also part of the product.

The laser for sure is part of the product as well. And so far I think that we have focused on what actually matters for our final form factor. And I think that the laser discussions will come for sure in the near term and we are going to be preparing for it, but it's not, I think that at least for companies that are fabulous, that are focused on developing their key value, their key products, I think that the focus should be on the overall system and what is actually driven the final performance and form factors.

Zach Peterson:

So yeah, it sounds like focusing on the form factor allows you to continue pushing the limits on miniaturization of each of the different components and I guess push off the integration of lasers directly onto the chip as far as possible until you have a bunch of people start to demanding the photonic iPhone.

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Yeah, exactly. So as soon as we see that there is a high volume market in something that drastically required to get in the fingerprint size of a photonic integrated system per se then is where you actually need to integrate absolutely everything. But if for the 95% of the remaining applications, it's okay with a board size level device, we are focusing on understanding the key parameters on providing the actual technology that allows us to move now. And of course that will put the technology, the programmable photonic technology in an ideal situation for once the cointegrations of lasers with the devices that I mentioned that it's happening already, it's more mature. It's going to be relatively easy to cointegrate that with our systems.

Zach Peterson:

So you're currently developing a box basically, I think you described it as a black box to some people that you can purchase off the shelf and then plug into and start using. However, if you dig into that box, of course you'll find all these different components. I'm sure most of them are off the shelf aside from of course, your processor. So I'm now wondering, is there ever going to be an opportunity for someone to, let's say just purchase one of your processors by the other components around it needed to run the processor optically just off the shelf and maybe build a custom system around your products?

Daniel Perez Lopez:
 

Yeah, so the first generation processor that we have put in the market is basically being a rack size module. It's difficult to cointegrate with others products. So this allows and it's allowing some of the tier one telecom operators, for example, in the world to start working ahead of the possibilities of the technology even though it's not yet integrable in or with a form factor that allows them to integrate that into other products. It can be, as you mentioned, unless you are in a data center or similar, this allows them to start kicking off the learning process of programmable photonics. It's a really fast learning process, but they are already working on generation of functions, their custom algorithms on top of the base algorithms that we provide. But totally agree with what you mentioned. What we are developing is next generation boards based equipment. So it's easier to integrate a board with different components.

So rather than them thinking about the control electronics and everything else, the board size device in, we'll incorporate already the photonic integrated secrets, the necessary control electronics, the necessary logic. So then you only need to worry about what matters for your product. If you have a, for example, let's say that you're developing a intra data center or station system where you want to have a smart router connecting team speeders, optical interconnects, then you will focus on the optical interfaces and the communication interface. You don't need to develop anything else. We have optimized already the control electronics to get a fast preconfiguration time to get all the synchronization among the software layer so you as a user can focus on what you can actually provide value.

Zach Peterson:

Well, I understand that, and I get that getting this first generation product out to market is really important, especially for maybe developers who want to build on top of this. I guess I'm just wondering if there would ever be an opportunity to release something that's in module form factor so that it has the integration that you're describing with all the control electronics built around the chip, it has the optical interfaces somewhere on the module, and then people still interface to it on a custom system. But I think having the optical modules around, or the optical interfaces I should say on that module, make it a bit more challenging because usually in the electronic space, when we think about a module, we think about something that plugs into a couple of board to board connectors and it's all electrical, and then we don't really worry about it. But then when you add the optical element to it, I think people then wonder, well, how would I interface to that module in order to take advantage of this, especially if my application isn't going to be best served with a rack mount unit.

Daniel Perez Lopez:

To that point, if you think about a board size system where you have a photonic integrated secret, your control electronics and your peripherals or let's say connectors or ports, if you have not a development board but a board that can integrate within a product and the product demands optical interconnections, then it will depend on the volumes that we are talking. So for a specific volumes that are high enough, it's possible for us to just interchange the different connectors and adapt the final connectors to the users. Otherwise complete development board with the specific MTP connectors, having with a single connector, you can just flow more than 24, 34, 64 optical fibers within a single connector.

So from an optical connectivity perspective, I think that it's good example. Today, the opposite to that is either of course, nonintegrated, tabled ways, components, aggregation based on these suite components. So you can have your modulator, you can have your photo detector, you can have components that basically consumes or take some centimeters by centimeters when distributed all together. And the beauty of our integrated devices is that most of these photonic elements are integrated in a single millimeters by millimeters photonic integrated secret. So the photo detectors is not disaggregated, interconnects are not disaggregated, everything else is everything is just compact.

Zach Peterson:

So you brought up the number of optical fibers that need to interface with this type of system. I'm going to assume that those are all of your iOS that you could access on the chip. Is that correct?

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Well, an optical engine in general can have many different interfaces. So you may have, let's say bare optical ports. As you mentioned, this may be coming through optical fibers. Or there are many different ways to get into the photonic integrated circuit, but the optical fiber is the conventional one that interacts with the external world. Within the photonic integrated circuit that incorporates modulators and photo detectors, another interface that you will have is high speed RF analog inputs on outputs. If you are enabling also analog based processing, for example, for microwave photonics applications or RF applications. And at the same time, you may have also digital iOS, so similar to the ones that you may find on a DPO or a processor in a computer, being able to get digital signals within the device of the system. And then your signals go through digital to analog convertor, and then the analog directly feeding a modulator. So I will say that you may have three interfaces for a complete photonic engine.

Zach Peterson:

I see. Okay. Well, this is all very interesting. We're running a little low on time, but I think for our last question, I'd just like to ask, what do you see as maybe the next generation of these systems? Is it just miniaturization that's your goal, or do you see it expanding out in the current form factor to a broader array of applications? Maybe automotive, maybe aerospace, maybe medical things like that? Or is it a combination of these two or are you just being driven by customers?

Daniel Perez Lopez:
 

Yeah, I think that the answer is we are driven by customers, but at the same time, of course, we are internally studying where the technology is going to be able to deliver the next generation performance. In some of the fields that you mentioned. We are focusing today on communications space for optical based communications and management for RF communications and the processing intra data center communications. But as you mentioned, there are also many different fields where we actually believe that the photonics and in particular programmable photonics is going to be able to deliver, it's going to be required next. I think that a common feeling of the applications and protocols that are appearing and appearing, it's they have one thing in common, which is the flexibility and the programability that is required. The world is changing every minute in terms of technology, even more so what was valued four years ago.

Now it's not valued anymore. The communication needs, the processing, the signal processing needs for optical networks is growing at a pace that is much higher than the one that the technology's able to deliver. So it's going to be really interesting to see in the future what are the actual technologies that allows us to keep growing with the same speed that we as a society are growing on many, many different application fields. We believe that photonics is the actual candidate to complement electronics and boost these applications and even enable these next generations. And we certainly believe that programmable photonics is going to be key in order to be able to put photonics technology in the hands of this society.

Zach Peterson:

Well, great. As all of this stuff rolls out, it would be great if we could have you on again in the future to discuss it because I'm sure it'll be very interesting and people will be eager to hear about it.

Daniel Perez Lopez:

Yeah. Perfect. Thank you.

Zach Peterson:

Thank you very much for joining us. We've been talking with Daniel Perez Lopez, co-founder and CTO of iPronics. Make sure to check out the show notes for some very interesting resources, and you'll be able to learn more about iPronics and their products. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit the subscribe button. You'll be able to keep up with all of our episodes and tutorials as they come out. And last but not least, don't stop learning. Stay on track and we'll see you next time.