Robert Blum
Director of Strategic Marketing & Business Development
Intel
Robert Blum is General Manager of New Business and Sr. Director of Marketing for Intel’s Silicon Photonics Product Division. Prior to joining Intel, Robert was Director of Strategic Marketing at Oclaro Inc., and held various Director of Product Management and Marketing roles for Oclaro’s telecommunications products and consumer laser portfolio. Before joining Oclaro, Robert was Product Line Manager for optical transmission components at JDS Uniphase Corporation and held various engineering and marketing management roles at Gemfire Corporation, all in California. Robert worked at Deutsche Telekom’s research labs in Darmstadt, Germany, while completing his master’s thesis and holds a doctorate degree in Physics from the University of Technology in Hamburg. He has also studied and done research at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Switzerland, and at Stanford University, California.
Presentations
Silicon Photonics for automotive LIDAR and other sensing applications
LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is widely considered a necessity for fully automated self-driving automotive applications. LiDAR systems must incorporate either a large number of optical emitters or a means of steering the optical emission across the far field. Due to the density of optical components required, LiDAR is ripe for optical integration in order to achieve miniaturization and scalable manufacturability of this goal. This talk will discuss how silicon photonics can enable high volume LiDAR deployments and review other sensing opportunities that can benefit from a highly integrated photonics platform with integrated lasers and optical amplifiers.
Panel Sessions
PICs for LIDAR
A LIDAR consists mainly of a laser source, a laser beam scanner, and the detection optics. Pushed by the automotive market, solid-state LIDARs are promising in bringing the cost down while making them more robust, with no moving parts, and compact. PICs offer some very concrete opportunities for LIDAR. In solid-state LIDARs, PICs can be used as the laser source. When combined with the on-chip components typically used in communications technology, pulsed lasers and frequency-modulated lasers can be realized. PICs can also be used to replace the beam-steering part of the LIDAR, through the use of optical phased arrays. Much like phased-array antennas in wireless communications, such optical phased arrays can shape the laser beam and steer it fast for video-rate three-dimensional imaging. The system has no moving components, as compared to using mechanical and micro-mechanical (MEMS) scanning devices, making it robust, and is lens-free. Laboratory based implementations have already shown the feasibility, and the technology is now moving to the market. Sources and detectors can be integrated on the PIC, with the potential of realizing a fully integrated, single-chip LIDAR, and allowing unprecedented high volumes at low cost. The purpose of the panel discussion on PICs for LIDAR is to discuss these unique selling points of PICs with LIDAR manufacturers, TIER-1 suppliers and OEM in automotive and other markets.
Does volume drive photonics integration?
Photonics touches our daily lives from our cell phones, TVs, illumination to optical communications. As applications and user requirement become more complex, there is a need for integration. The question remains what is the principle driver. Within each market segment there are different requirements in terms of speed, power, efficacy, size and cost. Is the mass production the key driver for increasing the functionality on a photonic chip, or is it the cost, or the application itself. In this panel session we will discuss the challenges faced in different market segments and whether there remain advantages in hybrid and discrete packaging or whether photonic integration is inevitable.