DAS Photonics is a spin-off company from the Nanophotonics Technology Center (ntc.upv.es) at the Polytechnic University of Valencia that develops innovative products based on proprietary photonics technology for high-performance sectors: defense and security, avionics/aeronautics, and satellites/space.
José María Marín, CEO of Fibernet, explains that “photonics is the technology of the future and the natural next step after electronics; photonics is better than electronics in energy consumption, speed, size, and performance.”
Marín comments that “Fibernet’s investment in Fibernova is due to the enormous development potential of photonics technology in Spain and worldwide.” Currently, there are very few centers in Europe that possess nanophotonics technology, and Fibernova, in Valencia, is one of them, where it develops its products.
Photonics is the science that investigates and develops the technology associated with the generation and control of light and other forms of radiant energy, whose quantum unit is the photon. Its primary purpose is the transmission of information via light, using photons as carriers of data and instructions. It studies light emission, transmission, deviation, amplification, and detection by means of optical instruments, lasers and other light sources, optical fibers, electro-optical equipment, and related electronics. The range of applications in photonics extends from energy generation to communications detection and the communication process itself.
Fibernova has a Class 10 cleanroom (1000 times cleaner than an operating room - Class 100000) on the UPV campus for manufacturing 150 mm (6 inch) wafers for photonics chips. It has a production capacity of 8000 chips per day.
The room is kept in perfect condition for wafer manufacturing thanks to an air recirculation system from the ceiling to the floor operating 24/7.
The facilities have several state-of-the-art pieces of equipment, such as an electron gun for assembling chips.
These chips have diverse applications in different markets, such as lab-on-chip sensors for the medical market (multiple analyses in a short time along with reduced costs). In the telecommunications sector, they are used for the interconnection of data centers (massive data transmission), etc.
