VLC Photonics has been acquired by Japanese tech giant Hitachi. The company will continue to provide photonic integrated circuit (PIC) engineering services as part of the Hitachi’s broader offering.
VLC Photonics started in 2011 as a spin-off company from the Telecommunications and Multimedia Applications Institute (iTeam) located at the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain), where its founders worked as researchers on optical communication systems and photonic integrated circuits for more than 20 years. It offers services to assess the feasibiluty of integrating optical systems onto photonic chips and supports the integration process.
PICs are devices in which optical functions are integrated into wafer materials such as silicon, indium phosphide and silicon nitride and have immediate applications in transceivers for optical communications.
Recently, internet traffic has been continuing to increase significantly due to the data arising from social media, video streaming services, working from home, IoT and the overall digitisation of our economy and environment.
In the optical communications market, higher speeds and increased bandwidth are required to satisfy this growing demand. Meanwhile as demand gets stronger, the market has also had to manage issues of power consumption, size and cost reduction, and manufacturing scalability. Photonic integration provides the means to address all these requirements in a more holistic way than the traditional approach of assembling optical systems from discrete parts.
A long-term provider of components and services to the optical communications industry, Hitachi High-Tech is aware of the increasing need of customers for greater integration and innovation. As the foremost independent provider of PIC design, test and engineering services, VLC is in an excellent position to help Hitachi High-Tech serve the new requirements of its existing customers as well as providing a base for the development of new service provisions.
Besides the optical communications market, PICs are also becoming a critical platform technology within many industrial sectors such as automotive sensing, environmental testing, health sciences and quantum technology.
Going forward, Hitachi High-Tech will not only provide a more complete one-stop service, but also provide engineering services that leverage the strengths of both companies to contribute to solving customers’ issues and expand its business.
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