Centre for Programmable Photonics Integrated Circuits and Systems (CPPICS) is a newly established Centre of Excellence (CoE) at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras and funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Govt. of India. Major objective of this CoE is to cater to the industrial needs of R&D in the field of photonics with a focus on the design and development of multipurpose programmable photonic processor chips for various system level applications. Since a programmable photonic processor circuit can be designed by Mach-Zehnder interferometer based tunable basic units (TBUs) in various mesh architectures, it is fondly called by many as the Field Programmable Photonic Gate Array (FPPGA). The nomenclature FPPGA is directly borrowed from the analogous concept of electronic field programmable photonic gate array (FPGA) used in digital electronics. However, usages of FPGA and FPPGA are not equivalent; rather FPGA based control electronics are required for driving the proposed FPPGA block. Therefore, co-integration of FPPGA and FPGA through electronic and photonic design automation (EPDA) is considered as the next generation semiconductor technology challenge for energy efficient and cost-effective solutions of complex problems. The CoE-CPPICS is committed for the demonstration of FPPGA based optical signal processors for cutting-edge technology solutions in the area of quantum photonics and microwave photonics engineering. Our industry partner Si2 Microsystems, Bangalore has been actively involved in this mission with substantial in-kind commitments. This mission mode program has been planned for a duration of five years starting from 1st January 2021.
