DARPA Funds Photonic Circuits For Scalable Systems
DARPA launched the Photonic Integrated Circuit Architectures for Scalable System Objectives (PICASSO), offering about $35 million to fund research that scales photonic circuits using existing components, with proposals due March 6 and a July program kickoff. The agency seeks circuit-level solutions to overcome optical attenuation and spurious interference limiting circuit depth, targeting predictable performance in 18 months and generalized functionality by 36 months.
Key Points
- 1Announces $35M PICASSO program to scale photonic integrated circuits using existing components.
- 2Highlights physics limits—optical attenuation and spurious interference restrict circuit depth and signal fidelity.
- 3Encourages circuit-level design strategies to avoid electronic conversion and unlock system-level AI workload gains.
Scoring Rationale
High score due to DARPA's official $35M program and concrete milestones; limited by early-stage research and technical uncertainty.
Sources
Public references used for this report.
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