Need Heterogeneous Integration at Scale? Meet TRANSVERSE, Europe’s Micro-Transfer Printing Pilot Line

As photonic integrated circuits become increasingly complex, combining the best material platforms within a single product remains one of the industry’s biggest challenges. TRANSVERSE, the 200 mm micro-transfer printing pilot line operated by imec and Ghent University, helps companies evaluate and adopt heterogeneous integration to accelerate next-generation photonic products.

The Challenge: Integrating the Best of Photonics

The future of integrated photonics depends on combining multiple material platforms within a single system. Silicon photonics provides an excellent foundation, but many applications require III-V lasers and amplifiers, thin-film lithium niobate modulators, advanced photodetectors and other specialized building blocks. For companies, the challenge is finding a scalable and manufacturable route to bring these material platforms together.

What is TRANSVERSE?

TRANSVERSE is a 200 mm pilot line established by imec and Ghent University to advance micro-transfer printing (MTP) as an industrial technology for heterogeneous photonic integration.

Figure 1: TRANSVERSE is a 200 mm pilot line operated by imec and Ghent University, providing wafer-scale micro-transfer printing and heterogeneous integration capabilities for next-generation photonic products.

At the heart of TRANSVERSE is micro-transfer printing (MTP), a technology that enables the selective integration of advanced photonic building blocks onto target wafers.

By selectively transferring pre-fabricated device coupons onto target wafers, MTP enables different material platforms to be combined within a common manufacturing flow while preserving the strengths of each technology.

Figure 2: Micro-transfer printing enables parallel integration of photonic building blocks (coupons) from multiple source wafers onto a common target wafer, supporting heterogeneous photonic integration at scale.

Why Companies Engage with TRANSVERSE

TRANSVERSE helps companies accelerate the adoption of heterogeneous integration by providing access to process development, rapid prototyping, pilot-line validation, technology transfer, and low-volume manufacturing capabilities. Supported by wafer-scale micro-transfer printing, back-end processing, characterization and testing, the pilot line helps to bridge the gap between promising concepts and commercially relevant products while reducing development risk, cost and time-to-market.

The imec Advantage

One of the strongest differentiators of TRANSVERSE is its close connection to imec’s world-leading silicon photonics ecosystem. Customers can leverage advanced imec silicon photonics platforms (iSiPP), mature process flows, established PDKs and a broad ecosystem of building blocks. TRANSVERSE complements these platforms by developing MTP-enabled design capabilities and MTP-PDKs that allow heterogeneous devices to be integrated on top of proven silicon photonics technologies. However, we are also open to discuss micro-transfer printing onto your specialty target substrates.

Figure 3: By combining mature photonic platforms, MTP-enabled design capabilities and pilot-line validation, TRANSVERSE helps customers accelerate the development of advanced heterogeneous photonic products.

Figure 4: TRANSVERSE supports the complete heterogeneous integration workflow, from design enablement and printable-device development to transfer printing, post-processing, characterization and validation.

Accelerating Next-Generation Photonic Products

The pilot line supports integration of III-V lasers, semiconductor optical amplifiers, photodetectors and thin-film lithium niobate devices onto silicon photonics platforms. This enables organizations to evaluate new architectures for AI and datacenter interconnects, telecom and datacom systems, quantum photonics, sensing, LiDAR and emerging integrated photonic products without creating a custom integration process from scratch. We can also discuss your particular building blocks that need to be heterogeneously integrated.

Part of Europe’s Photonics Manufacturing Future

Heterogeneous integration is increasingly recognized as a strategic capability for Europe’s semiconductor and photonics industries. TRANSVERSE contributes to this vision by providing dedicated pilot-line infrastructure for wafer-scale micro-transfer printing and advanced photonic integration.

Supported by PhotonDelta and aligned with broader European initiatives such as Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU) activities, TRANSVERSE helps strengthen a European silicon photonics value chain spanning design, foundries, heterogeneous integration, packaging and testing.

Together, these efforts help strengthen Europe’s ability to move photonic innovations from laboratory demonstrations to industrial deployment.

Why Meet TRANSVERSE at PIC Summit Europe?

PIC Summit Europe brings together technology leaders, product developers, investors and ecosystem partners from across the global photonics industry.

If your organization is evaluating heterogeneous integration, exploring new PIC architectures, seeking pilot-line access, or preparing the next generation of photonic products, the TRANSVERSE team would be pleased to discuss how we can accelerate your development roadmap.

Let’s discuss your integration challenge at PIC Summit Europe!