PUNCH

The PUNCH project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 101070560. PUNCH brings together a unique consortium which spans the diverse areas of expertise required to develop a solution for time-deterministic and time-sensitive networks. PUNCH proposes a new optical switching paradigm which breaks the trade-off between flexibility (ultra-dynamic reconfigurability) and determinism (guaranteed latency and jitter) by offering an all-to-all reconfigurable interconnect. Within PUNCH, a 2×2×8Lambda wavelength selective switching element will be scaled to a fully non-blocking 8x8x8Lambda and 16x16x8Lambda reconfigurable optical switch fabric. Micro-transfer-printing-compatible semiconductor optical amplifiers enable loss-less optical switching on a silicon photonics platform. Custom configuration electronic ICs to actuate, control, and power-monitor a scaled switch fabric will be densely integrated with the photonic ICs into a heterogeneous fanout wafer-level package. In addition, the optical interfacing to the photonic ICs will be accomplished using an optical redistribution layer, providing an optical fanout on organic IC-substrates, and allowing for a scalable optical fiber packaging solution. The novel integration and packaging processes will be applied for manufacturing 1.6 Tbit/s optical transceivers providing the interface between optical switches and electronic resources. The optical switch and transceiver prototypes will be demonstrated in two use cases, incl. 5G Transport Networks and resource disaggregation in Data Centers. The PUNCH consortium is led by IMEC that is strongly engaged in supporting activities such as low-volume prototyping services. The PUNCH project is launched in September 2022 and will run for four years.