PRESENTATION
Photonic Integrated Circuits for LiDAR: progress and benefits of collaborative development
Pointcloud Inc., was founded with the mission to create a versatile, integrated, three-dimensional imaging chipset, capable of achieving the breadth of applicability and impact that digital image sensors have achieved in the 2D imaging world and enable 3D cameras to become as ubiquitous and performant as their 2D counterparts. The Coherent Focal Plane Array (CFPA) architecture, pioneered by Pointcloud, combines the performance of coherent ranging with the scalability of array technology to create a cost efficient, high performance, all solid-state 3D imaging + radial velocity sensor. The technology was developed with high volume manufacturing in mind, leveraging high volume semiconductor and packaging processes from partners. In this talk, we present the latest progress towards high resolution CFPA sensors. In addition, we highlight the benefits to capital efficiency and development speed arising from partnering with academic institutions with deep field expertise and rapid prototyping capabilities, such as University of Southampton, and industrial companies with complementary expertise and high-volume manufacturing capabilities.
Remus Nicolaescu
Pointcloud Inc.
Remus Nicolaescu is the Co-founder and CEO of Pointcloud Inc., a San Francisco and Zurich based startup developing coherent 3D imaging solutions using silicon photonics. Prior to Pointcloud, he held executive roles with technology companies in the US, Europe and Asia. He started his career at Intel, where he performed pioneering work in silicon photonics: he proposed and developed the first optical Raman amplifiers and lasers in silicon waveguides, and was instrumental in the demonstration of the first >1GHz silicon photonics modulator. He obtained his Masters and Ph.D. in Physics from University of Bucharest and Texas A&M University respectively, and MBA from INSEAD.