I thought it interesting that two Canadian photonic companies made announcements this week involving Singapore (the other is Zecotek).

I started reading up on Singapore and photonics, and get the impression that Singapore wants to be a leader in photonics.

The Photonics Institute at Nanyang Tech. University (NTU) has only been around for two years and appears to be working towards finding practical applications for photonics. They even have a Centre for Disruptive Photonic Technologies.

I found this article dated July 2016. A bit old but thought worth sharing.

http://tpi.ntu.edu.sg/NewsnEvents/Documents/Newsletter/Illuminate_a_TPI_LUX_newsletter_issue02.pdf

DenseLight looks forward to a fruitful journey of membership with LUX Photonics Consortium after acquisition by POET Technologies Inc

Shortly after news of POET’s acquisition of DenseLight Semiconductors was released on 28th April, we met with Dr Suresh Venkatesan, POET’s Chief Executive Officer, for an introduction to the LUX Photonics Consortium, as well as a visit to NTU’s The Photonics Institute (TPI) to better understand the company’s plans and its roadmap in Singapore. "The acquisition of DenseLight Semiconductor reflects a new chapter in our history, and serves as a significant step in realizing the promise of our product roadmap and strategic plan that we established in September 2015”, said Dr Suresh Venkatesan, POET’s Chief Executive Officer. “This synergistic combination can provide our customers a broader range of differentiated photonics technologies. The resulting enhancement of our design, test and packaging capabilities also promises to optimize time-to-revenue for our customers. POET now has a larger product portfolio to enhance our mission of enabling integrated photonics products for our expanded end markets.” POET intends to expand the operations of DenseLight's existing manufacturing facilities in Singapore. This strategic acquisition will result in many ancillary benefits to the combined company. DenseLight's test and reliability capabilities will be particularly valuable in accelerating New Product Introduction (NPI). Additionally, POET expects to benefit from access to DenseLight's team of experienced engineers and employees. At the visit to TPI in NTU on 13th May, Dr Suresh Venkatesan remarked that there is a wide range of photonics research expertise and capability in Singaporean universities, and that he is impressed by the Centre of Disruptive Photonics Technology (CDPT) and Centre of Excellence for Semiconductor Lighting and Displays (LUMINOUS!), both under the TPI. Dr Suresh Venkatesan also applauded the work of LUX Photonics Consortium which seeks to strengthen and leverage industry-university ties to develop new applications in the photonics industry and he looks forward to a fruitful journey of DenseLight’s membership with the Consortium.