Every year in late October/early November, our two-week Deep Dive PIC Design Course takes place in Eindhoven. The participants, engineers and scientists with a background in photonics, learn how to get the best out of PIC technology and circuit design using the powerful JePPIX building blocks. In this testimonial series, previous participants tell us about their experience. This time it’s the experience of Dinka Milovancev, Scientist at the Austrian Institute of Technology.
“I come from the microelectronics world; I did my PhD in Vienna on integrated circuits in CMOS and BiCMOS technologies, but that is a whole different story compared to photonic integrated circuit design. During my PhD time, I became familiar with photonics a little bit since we used integrated APDs and PIN photodiodes together with electronics readout circuits on the same wafer. However, my real interest in photonics came after I joined the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology in 2019. At AIT, I have been working with fiber optics and bulk componentry, but we need to keep ourselves up to date with new developments and PIC design is a big part of that.
This is why I joined the JePPIX PIC design course. My more experienced colleague advertised it in this way: “The best way to start with PIC design is to take the intensive PIC design course offered by JePPIX”. Therefore, together with two other members of our Photonics team from AIT, I travelled to Eindhoven for the 2-week PIC design course. The time was well spent, I really enjoyed the parts with theoretical background which helped to renew my knowledge so far and learn important PIC design concepts. It was intense information-wise with a lot of small discussions during classes and coffee breaks. The most important part for me was the hands-on experience with different software tools, where I was able to see digest versions of different design flows. I am especially grateful to the software providers who gave us time after the course to play around with their programs. The fact that we were able to have “live” lectures and tutorials and to meet other people from the community was a big plus of the 2021 course.
The participants were quite diverse, from company’s management to PhD students, showing all the more that PIC design is an area of great potential, which anyone interested can jump into. Now, I feel more enabled and encouraged to participate in the next MPW runs together with my colleagues.”
Eager to participate in the upcoming edition of the JePPIX PIC Design Course? Click here for more information and to sign up!