C3PO Research Project
Welcome to the project website of the "C3PO" European research project.
C3PO (Colourless and Coolerless Components for low Power Optical Networks) is an industry-driven project co-funded by the European Commission and aims to design and develop a new generation of energy-efficient photonic and electronic components and apply them to next-generation access and high-speed metro-core networks.
The objectives of the project are:
- Design and development of up to 100Gb/s photonic and electronic integrated circuits on the same platform
- Development of optoelectronic integrated circuits that do not require cooling equipment and operate at high temperatures [Coolerless components]
- Development of photonic circuits that can operate equally well with different wavelengths of light, thus being plug-and-play to wavelength-division-multiplexed systems [Colourless components]
- Development of unified design rules for both electronics and photonics for achieving lower power consumption
- Development of energy-optimized optical switching modules
- Design systems and networks using "reflective photonics" everywhere
- Investigate disruptive effects in the design of new optical networks using coolerless and colourless reflective C3PO components
- Evaluate the technology developed, protect the knowledge and investigate potential commercialization routes
