The European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ethernet Alliance, to cooperate on the endorsement of standards and technology roadmaps.
EPIC has 464 members encompassing the entire photonics value chain, while the Ethernet Alliance is comprised of member organisations dedicated to advancing Ethernet technologies.
The partnership will encourage cooperation between the consortiums and its members, including participation at events, writing joint articles, and collaboration in information exchange and promotion, and advisory mandates.
The MoU was signed at EPIC’s annual general meeting, which took place in Glasgow, UK from 11 to 12 April. The meeting gathered 220 photonics industry leaders from 25 countries.
‘The collaboration between the Ethernet Alliance and EPIC will benefit the members of both associations, as it will result on a set of forums with joint participation of EPIC and Ethernet Alliance members, with the purpose of finding ways of cooperation between companies from different parts of the supply chain,’ said Carlos Lee, director general of EPIC.
Members of the Ethernet Alliance include system and component vendors, industry experts, and university and government professionals.
‘As Ethernet’s diversity continues to grow, optics will be key to its ongoing expansion into new applications, markets, and speeds. EPIC and its hundreds of members are helping to drive the next generation of optical innovation,’ said John D’Ambrosia, chairman of the Ethernet Alliance. ‘The Ethernet Alliance is dedicated to the deployment of all things Ethernet, and we look forward to working collaboratively with EPIC and its members on today’s Ethernet solutions and bringing forward tomorrow’s game-changing optical Ethernet advancements.’
Jose Pozo, CTO of EPIC added: ‘These are amazing times for the photonics industry, where mature technologies developed and deployed over the last three decades will have to be adapted to the upcoming challenges of the 2020+ years. It is expected that during the 2020 decade, Ethernet speeds of 800GbE or 1.6TbE will be demanded, and that only can be done with the further development of photonic technologies, such as new generation specialty optical fibre, silicon photonics, indium phosphide, VCSELs, polymer photonics, plasmonics, graphene photonics, etc.’
