GigOptix transceiver program gets US funding

The US Senate Appropriations Committee has approved $5 million in federal funding for GigOptix Inc.'s On-Chip Integrated Photonic Polymer Transceiver program. The funding, part of the fiscal year 2011 Department of Defense Appropriations bill recently passed by the Senate committee, has yet to receive the approval of the Senate and Congress.

GigOptix hopes to qualify its Thin Film Polymer on Silicon (TFPS) modulators for military use. The company plans to use the grant to design and test the second iteration of its integrated driver with the polymer optical modulator on a standard BiCMOS wafer and to complete the integration of the receiver side on separate chips. The technology is meant for next-generation 400Gb/s optical communication systems.

The federal funding is meant to discover faster and more energy efficient power and communications systems to help the US military maintain its edge in communications technology.