2018

Winners and Runners Up

Lifetime PIC Achievement
Professor Roel Baets
Individual Awards

Roel Baets (Professor) received an MSc degree in Electrical Engineering from Ghent University in 1980 and a second MSc degree from Stanford University in 1981. He received a PhD degree from Ghent University in 1984. From 1984 till 1989 he held a postdoctoral position at IMEC (with detachment to Ghent University). Since 1989 he has been a professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at UGent where he founded the Photonics Research Group. Roel Baets has made contributions to research on photonic integrated circuits, both in III-V semiconductors and in silicon. In 2006 he founded ePIXfab, the first Multi-Project-Wafer service for silicon photonics. Since then ePIXfab has evolved to be the European Silicon Photonics Alliance. He leads the Photonics Research Group at Ghent University. Roel Baets is also director of the multidisciplinary Center for Nano- and Biophotonics (NB Photonics) at UGent, founded in 2010. He was co-founder of the interuniversity UGent-VUB MSc programme in Photonics and of the European MSc programme in Photonics. Roel Baets is a grant holder of the Methusalem programme of the Flemish government and of the European Research Council (ERC advanced grant). He is a Fellow of the IEEE, of the European Optical Society (EOS) and of the Optical Society of America (OSA) He is also a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium.

NOMINEES
Ronan Burgess, Andy Carter, Fred Kish, John E. Bowers


PIC Entrepreneur and Business Leader
Dr Michael Lebby
Individual Awards

Dr. Michael S. Lebby has been the Chief Executive Officer of Lightwave Logic, Inc. since May 1, 2017. Dr. Lebby serves as an Advisor at Redfern Integrated Optics, Inc. Dr. Lebby served as the Chief Technology Officer and General Manager of Translucent at Silex Systems Ltd. Dr. Lebby Founded Ignis Optics, Inc. since 2001 and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer. He served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA)., since 2006. He has more than 20 years of experience in the field of optical communications. In 1985, he joined ATT Bell Laboratories. He joined Motorola's Phoenix Corporate Research Laboratory, where he served as its RD Business Technology Development Manager in 1997. Dr. Lebby served as Head of Translucent at Silex Systems Ltd. From 1990 to 1998, he served as an RD section head of Motorola's OPTOBUS program. He was a member of ATT Bell Labs and British Ministry of Defense Photonic research efforts, where he concentrated on InP and GaAs OEIC's. After a year at AMP as a member of the Global Optoelectronics Division's management team, Dr. Lebby joined Intel Capital as a Corporate Investor. His career has spanned all aspects of the optoelectronics business, ranging from research and development, to sales, marketing and investing. Dr. Lebby is internationally recognized as a technologist, leader and market expert in optics and photonics. Dr. Lebby's reputation in the field of optoelectronics is widely recognized with wide-ranging experience across many key areas including: Intel Capital Optoelectronics team, ATT Bell Labs and Motorola photonics research, Oclaro as well as an Entrepreneur with his own venture backed fiber optics start-ups. He headed the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA), the premier networking trade association for business and scientific professionals in the optical space based in Washington, DC. Dr. Lebby has testified on behalf of the optoelectronics industry on Capitol Hill and brought the industry together on key issues. In 2015, Dr. Lebby completed a set of industry roadmaps for integrated photonics technologies over the next decade as part of the Federally funded IMI (Institute of Manufacturing Innovation) competition. With over 200 USPTO issued utility patents (and over 395 including national and international derivatives), Dr. Lebby is considered to be one of the most prolific inventors in the field of optoelectronics. He is also a Fellow and member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Optical Society of America (OSA). He has been Executive Director of OIDA since 2005. He serves as Director of Optoelectronics Industry Development Association. He serves as an Independent Director of IntexyS Photonics SA. He serves as Member of Technical Advisory Board at Translucent Inc. He served as Director of Intel. He served as Director of AMP/Tyco. He served as Director of Redfern Integrated Optics, Inc., since June 6, 2007. He has been an Director of Lightwave Logic, Inc. since May 1, 2017 and served as its Independent Director August 26, 2015 until April 1, 2017. Dr. Lebby holds more than 200 US patents in optoelectronics. He is a Fellow member of IEEE and OSA. Dr. Lebby was awarded the degree of Doctor of Engineering in 2004 as well as PhD in 1987 and an MBA in 1985 from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom.

NOMINEES
Fang Wu, Bill Ring, Pascual Munoz / Jose Capmany, Hans van den Vlekkert, Tim Jenks, Radha Nagarajan


PIC Technologist
Bill Ring
Individual Awards

Bill Ring is currently a Senior VP at Poet Technologies where his work encompasses both III-V devices and dielectric technology. The major focus of the Dielectric waveguide development is currently on the introduction of Poet’s Optical Interposer Platform utilizing a low loss dielectric waveguide that is deposited and compatible with current CMOS processes. Previously, Bill was CEO of BB Photonics Inc., a start up developing uncooled 100GbE receivers using InP PICs with embedded dielectric waveguides. This was sold to Poet Technologies in June 2016. From 2010 to 2014, Bill was involved in the due diligence and purchase of Solar Systems Pty Ltd, an Australia concentrated photovoltaic company, where he subsequently held the roles of GM and then Chief Technology Officer for the company. Prior to this, he had started a consulting company in 2005 that worked with several fortune 500 companies and many start-up companies in the areas of defense, optoelectronic components and datacenter optical devices. During this period he also managed workshops for the USA based Optoelectronic Industry Development Association (OIDA) from 2005 to 2009. Before 2005 Bill held positions at Tyco Electronics, as Director of Operations and Director of development for devices and transceivers. Before joining Tyco, he was a Principle Engineer at Hewlett Packard (HP) and responsible for the design and development of 1310nm FP, 1480nm pump and DFB lasers for HP’s fiber optics group. In 1995 he introduced the first strained MQW laser into production at HP's UK facility that was later deployed in HP’s 1300nm SFF/SFP transceivers. Bill Holds a PhD from Surrey University in III-V light emitting devices, which showed that Intervalence Band Absorption (IVBA) was not the dominant loss mechanism in long wavelength lasers.

NOMINEES
Peter O’ Brien


PIC Hero
BRIGHT Photonics & NAZCA
Company Awards

BRIGHT Photonics is the first commercial PIC design house and behind the first commercial modules for technology transparent design of PIC components like AWGs and interconnects. In 2017 BRIGHT launched “NAZCA Design”. A state-of-the art free and open source PIC design tool for mask layout and more. It highly stimulates open access and open innovation for commercial and research projects. NAZCA turns out to be a game changer. The photonics community is adopting it rapidly as the tool of preference for its quality, efficiency and flexibility. While sharing PIC design for free with the community, the core business of BRIGHT Photonics remains quality driven commercial product development support for PIC based applications.

NOMINEES
Christian Koos, KIT


Advances in Photonics Integration
Ayar Labs
Company Awards

Our mission is to cut the amount of energy used in computing in half, by removing bottlenecks in moving data. We help companies keep up with skyrocketing volumes of data by miniaturizing fiber optic transceivers and making them in standard silicon chips, replacing copper interconnects and bringing the super-high bandwidths and low energy use of optical communications inside computers.

NOMINEES
VPIphotonics GmbH, LioniX International, VLC Photonics, FP7 PhoxTroT Consortium, IHP, Sicoya, Multiphoton Optics


Advances in PIC Manufacturing
LioniX International
Company Awards

LioniX International has been established in April 2016, and has acquired LioniX, Satrax, XiO Photonics and OctroliX B.V. The focus of LioniX International is on PIC enabled modules based on its proprietary waveguide technology (TriPleX™), in addition to microfluidics, optofluidics and MEMS. The acquisition of the aforementioned companies creates a vertical integrated company that delivers a complete solutions: from initial design through volume manufacturing of products. In addition, LioniX International has entered into strategic collaborations with partners in South Korea, to provide high-volume manufacturing of chips and assemblies, thereby enabling a seamless transition from prototype to high-volume manufacturing.

NOMINEES
VLC Photonics, Physik Instrumente, ficonTEC, Luxtera, Intel, Neophotonics, Juniper, Infinera, IQE


PIC Platforms
Ligentec
Company Awards

LiGenTec SA is a company located at EPFL innovation park in Switzerland and an expert in offering silicon nitride thickness above 600nm maintaining very low waveguide propagation loss.The main application areas include integrated quantum photonics, high Q-filters, supercontinuum generation, pulse generation, spectroscopy, bio-sensing and microwave photonics.With its silicon nitride chips LIGENTEC enables products based on integrated photonics for fabless companies and research institutions to be able to work with silicon nitride.

NOMINEES
GCS, Oclaro, Lumentum, IBM, Cisco


Sponsors for 2018


Schneider Electric
Digitalisation World
Evito
Navisite
Volta
Spreckley
Touchdown PR
Touchdown PR
NGD Systems
Sovereign Business Integration Group
CTERA