INESC Porto invests more than 600 000 euros in equipment

INESC Porto expects an investment of more than 600 thousand euros in the second phase of re-equipment for the several units of the institution.

The Optoelectronics and Electronic Systems Unit (UOSE) has received equipment for RIE - Reactive Ion Etching and PECVD - Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition.

http://www.oxfordplasma.de/systems/80plus.htm

The investment volume is 236 000 euros of equipment plus 14 000 euros of accessory equipment and installation.

In its turn, the Telecommunications and Multimedia Unit (UTM) is expected to acquire more equipment, although the process is still in the phase of asking quotations.

The re-equipment project REEQ/1272/EEI/2005 approved by FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) intends to reinforce the activity in Optical Communications. The budget for this project is 440 000 euros: 400 000 financed by the FCT and 40 000 by INESC Porto.

Last year, approximately 60% of the budget was dedicated to equipment; the rest of the sum is expected to be spent this year.

As a result of this investment, a research laboratory was created – Optical Communications and Microwave Lab – in INESC Porto-Asprela which is currently seated in room C7, under the responsibility of Henrique Salgado, coordinator of the re-equipment project.

The objective of this project is not only to reinforce the activity in WDM base band and the characterization of optoelectronic devices until 20 GHz (lasers, photodiodes, Bragg gratings, etc), but also to create a new research area called Radio Over Fibre which aims to study the generation and transmission of Radio/Microwaves signals over optical fibre.

In this context, INESC Porto has already taken part in a STREP European Project –- "UROOF- Photonic Components for Ultra-wideband Radio over Optical Fibre”, whose partners are Holon Academic Institute of Technology (Israel), Wisair (Israel), THALES Communications (France), TES Electronic Engineering GmbH (Germany), University of Essex (UK), Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain), INESC Porto (Portugal), Centre for Integrated Photonics(UK) and INPG-IMEP (France).

In January this year, the PhD student João Oliveira also began his studies in the research topic “Design and Optimisation of WDM Radio Over Fibre Systems”.

In October 2006, two new PhD degrees are expected to strengthen the R&D activity in Optical Communications.