A bold new initiative supported by the European Union aims to revolutionize the continent’s position in next-generation semiconductor technology. Officially launched in June 2025, the PIXEurope project (Advanced Photonic Integrated Circuits Pilot Line for Europe) brings together leading European research institutes and companies to establish the world’s first fully integrated Open Access pilot line for Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs).
Backed by €400 million in funding through CHIPS JU, Agência Nacional de Inovação (ANI), and CCDR Centro, PIXEurope is a strategic effort to secure European technological sovereignty and reduce dependence on non-European chip manufacturing ecosystems. The pilot line aims to position Europe as a global leader in photonic chip design and fabrication, a technology critical to applications in communications, sensing, computing, and defense.
The project kicked off at ICFO, the Institute of Photonic Sciences, in Castelldefels, Barcelona, on June 9-10, with a two-day meeting that brought together consortium partners to set the vision for the next five years. PIXEurope results from a consortium that includes important institutions.
Portugal, represented solely by the Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), plays a vital role in ensuring the reliability and industrial viability of the pilot line. Researchers from IT’s Optical Sensors and Integrated Photonics group, in Aveiro, are leading efforts on test and reliability, a cornerstone for the transition of PIC technologies from research labs to real-world, high-volume manufacturing.
The Portuguese team, comprised of Miguel Vidal Drummond (local coordinator), Pedro Rito, António Teixeira, and Ricardo Oliveira, is developing a unified design-for-test framework, aimed at enhancing quality assurance, accelerating time-to-market, and reducing failure rates in production environments.
PIXEurope distinguishes itself by offering a broader and more advanced technological stack than any comparable initiative globally, including the U.S.-based AIM Photonics program. It will integrate a wide range of monolithic PIC platforms (Si, SiN, SiC, InP, AlO, Ge-Si), novel materials, wafer-level packaging, and high-throughput testing, all accessible via standardized Design Kits to ensure scalability and interoperability.
The project: