Connect Researchers in 3 Million Dollar US-Ireland Research Programme

Posted on: 24 March 2016

Two researchers at the Connect Centre for Future Networks and Communications at Trinity College Dublin will participate in a ground-breaking $3 million telecommunications research project supported by Science Foundation Ireland, the National Science Foundation USA and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland.

Director of Connect and Professor of Engineering and the Arts, Professor Linda Doyle, and Associate Professor of Optical Networks at the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Dr Marco Ruffini, will explore ways of delivering faster internet speeds capable of carrying large volumes of data with lower energy consumption and cost.

Funded through the US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership, the $3 million research collaboration is the first tripartite centre-to-centre research collaboration between the US, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. The project will address optical integrated chip technology for use in data centres. The collaboration aims to improve the agility of high-bandwidth optical connections that support high-capacity cloud applications, delivering faster internet speed while also reducing the energy consumption and cost.

Partnering with Connect will be another Science Foundation Ireland funded research centre, Irish Photonics Integration Centre (IPIC). In Northern Ireland, the research partner is the Computer Science Research Institute. In the US, the Centre for Integrated Access Networks (CIAN), a National Science Foundation funded engineering research centre is the main collaborator.

Professor Linda Doyle welcomed the announcement, “The coming years will see a massive surge in data transfer on the internet. New ways of managing this traffic must be developed. The design of more efficient optical network architectures will form part of the solution. Connect has particular expertise in this area of research and we are looking forward to being part of this landmark partnership.”

Speaking about the announcement, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of Ireland, Professor Mark Ferguson said, “Ireland’s significant international reputation for research excellence continues to grow. The cooperation and sharing of expertise in this prestigious research centre-to-centre collaboration will bring huge value and benefit to all the participating countries. Linking these centres together, provides more opportunities both for the research institutes and for the potential collaborators. I anticipate that significant advances will be made by this collaborative research effort and that the results generated will have significant economic and societal impact for all”.

CIAN Director, Professor Nasser Peyghambarian said, “This effort will complement CIAN activity in silicon photonics integration by allowing us to focus on packaging of the photonic chips that our foundry partner Sandia National Labs has been providing”.

CIAN Administrative Director and Project Lead, Dr Dan Kilper concluded, “By bringing together four research centres with experts spanning devices to systems and applications, we can bridge the technology divide and take large steps toward a new, more scalable Internet”.

The project will form links between the following academic institutions and leading researchers in Ireland and US:

From Republic of Ireland, Principal Investigator, Professor Liam Barry; Dr Conor McArdle (Dublin City University); Connect Director, Professor Linda Doyle; Professor Marco Ruffini (Trinity College Dublin); IPIC Direcotr, Professor Paul Townsend; and Dr Peter O’Brien (Tyndall National Institute/University College Cork).
From Ireland and Northern Ireland, Dublin City University; Tyndall Institute/University College Cork; Trinity College Dublin; and University of Ulster Coleraine.
From CIAN universities, University of Arizona; Columbia University; University of California San Diego; University of California Berkeley; and University of Sothern California.
From Northern Ireland, Principal Investigator, Professor Gerard Parr; Professor Bryan Scotney; Professor Sally McClean; and Professor Philip Morrow (Ulster University).
From USA, Principal Investigator, Professor Nasser Peyghambarian; CIAN Director, Professor Dan Kilper; Professor Robert Norwood (University of Arizona); Professor Keren Bergman (Columbia University); Professor Shaya Fainman (University of California, San Diego); and Professor Ming C Wu (University of California, Berkeley).