Project
Applications employing artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly becoming part of our everyday life. AI already influences how we communicate, work, manufacture, learn, research or even consume online services. However, many AI applications rely on substantial computational resources and require demanding storage capacity to process large data volumes. Prime examples are internet application such as the Internet of Things and broadband services such as HD video on demand or social media.
Modern digital electronic technologies are struggling to satisfy this computational challenge and rapidly approach their physical limits.
By moving away from electronic towards photonic approaches, the PHOENICS project aims to develop disruptive methods for implementing next-generation compute platforms.
PHOENICS aims to
- demonstrate a neuromorphic compute platform with Petascale processing performance
- realize photonic processors with unprecedented energy efficiency
- explore novel types of materials for brain-inspired computing
- remove latency barriers of electronic hardware
- establish new paradigms for AI computing

News

From two-dimensional to three-dimensional processing – new paper on “Higher-dimensional processing using a photonic tensor core with continuous-time data”
The University of Oxford, in collaboration with researchers from the Universities of Muenster, Exeter, and

New paper on an optical neural network with a large-scale event-driven architecture
The University of Muenster, in collaboration with our partners from the Universities of Exeter and

PHOENICS project meeting in London
The third PHOENICS meeting at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining in London provided

Milestone reached to break the von Neumann bottleneck
Read our new paper: In-memory photonic dot-product engine with electrically programmable weight banks Abstract Electronically reprogrammable photonic

New paper on photonic integrated circuits
Check out our new paper on Scalable High-Precision Trimming of Photonic Resonances by Polymer Exposure

How to decipher a secret code: students brought light into the darkness
We organized an engaging workshop for this year’s Girls’ Day on the 27th of April.
Expected Project Milestones
Design of first generation modulation unit completed
Functional prototype with 16x16 computation matrix
Functional prototype with 25x25 computation matrix
Operation of 16-channel input modulation units with 20GHz bandwith
Development of matrix block with 50GHz signal transmission capabilities