Semiconductor Insiders - Podcast EP326: How PhotonDelta is Advancing the Use of Photonic Chip Technology with Jorn Smeets

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Daniel is joined by Jorn Smeets, Managing Director for North America at PhotonDelta, an industry accelerator for photonic chip technology. Based in Silicon Valley, his mission is to advance the photonic chip industry by fostering collaboration between European and North American entities. Dan explores the focus of PhotonDelta… Read More

Hello, my name is Daniel Nenny, founder of Semaiwiki, the Open Forum for Semiconductor professionals. Welcome to the Semiconductor Insider's podcast series. My guest today is Yorne Smeats, managing director for Northern America at PhotonDelta, an industry accelerator for photonic chip technology. Based here in Silicon Valley, his mission is to advance the photonic chip industry by fostering collaboration between European and North American entities. Welcome to the podcast, Yorne. Thanks, Dan. It's a pleasure being here. So, Yohan, tell us a little bit of your background. What brought you to Photon Delta?

Yeah, so I was asked to join Photon Delta at its very beginning back in 2020. So that's almost six years ago. Back then, we were an organization of only a couple people. We were four people. And they needed someone that could build their marketing communications team to create more awareness about integrated Photomics and to also then, you know, use that to help raise more funding. And that's what I did.

Before that, I had vast commercial experience in different, you know, technical industries over the world. I've been living for some time in Singapore and China, Italy, in France, and the Netherlands. That's where I'm from. And so then 60 years ago, joined the integrated photonics industry. That's, I would say, my journey in a nutshell. That was great. So let's talk about the upcoming PIC.

summit USA, which is on Monday, January 19th, here in Silicon Valley, this is an invitation-only event to strengthen North America's silicon photonics ecosystem and, you know, build new collaborations with international markets and cutting-edge technologies. So what more can you tell us? Yeah, thanks. So as we began building photon delta's presence in the US, we started to do that just a bit over a year ago. We saw our growing interest in integrated photonics, but we also saw a fragmented ecosystem right so we have startups system integrators investors and academics that were all active but all having parallel conversations so that's when last year we created Partonics Innovation Day that was in January 2025 and

it was meant as a first experience right so we wanted to see whether we could bring these different stakeholder groups together in a focus neutral setting and have an honest discussion about you know where that the technology really stood where it needs to go and how do we and how we would get there together so since then you know the industry has clearly reached an infection point you've seen various announcements technology announcements with Nvidia copacched optics but also acquisitions like with celestial AI and for tonics is here to stay now the demand coming mostly from AI is translating

into real system requirements right so that's why we really need to shift the from is Photonics interesting to how do we scale, how do we manufacture and how do we integrate reliably? So since this first experiment with Photics Innovation Day, we saw a big success. There was a lot of interest that we sold out and that's when we said, you know what, we're going to do it again, but we're going to do it bigger and we're going to brand it towards our flagship event that we host every year in November in the Netherlands, which is called Big Summit Europe. So that's why this time, January 2026, we're going to be a big summit USA. Oh, great. Well, that's great that you brought it here to the US. And you're doing it right before SPIE Photonics, right? Yes, that's correct. So the exhibition of Photonics West starts on the Tuesday, January 20s.

And we see a lot of companies from Europe coming into town, but a lot of them are looking to interface with real customers. with real customers. And a lot of the customers that are based in Silicon Valley are not necessarily visiting the exhibition of Photics West. So if these companies are not coming to San Francisco for the show, we thought why not going to them, right? That's why we decide to go to Sunnydale instead.

That's a good idea. So how does this fit into the broader Photon Delta strategy? Yeah, so, you know, photon Delta, as you mentioned in your intro, we're an industry, et cetera. or PIC technology, right? So our role has always been to help turn strong photonics technologies into something that can scale by building a complete connected ecosystem. This means, you know, from R&D to manufacturing to market,

with everything that needs to exist around that in order to succeed, like investors. So historically, we did a lot of work in Europe back when I joined in 2020, right? We raised over one-and-half building. million euros in total to build strong public-private partnerships and really invest into a dense supplier base with its center of gravity in the Netherlands. Now the demand for PIC technology, as well as some of these scaling decisions that come with it are coming from the US. We see a growing interest in creating such platform where we can connect these different stakeholders. So my role in North

America is to connect those capabilities with real system requirements, with capital, with the manufacturing reality. And PIC Summit USA fits perfectly in that strategy because we create that platform, as I mentioned, right? So that platform where all of those perspectives meet at exactly the point where we are ready to scale. And we do that together with our local partners here in the US like Silicon Catalyst, like Illuminate, Optica, and Plug and Play who's hosting the event. Right. Yeah, you know, ecosystem is everything for the semiconductor industry. So what gaps are you seeing in the U.S. Photonics ecosystem that the PIC Summit USA is meant to address? Yeah, so I don't think the biggest gap is technology. I mean, we have some great technology out there in Europe and the U.S. But what I think is essential is to bring these organizations closer together so that we're better able to coordinate and also to set expectations.

So system companies today are asking very concrete questions about packaging, reliability, supply chains, volumes. And startups are often still coming from a technology push mindset. And investors are trying to map the technology onto a traditional semiconductor playbook. So what's missing is a shared understanding of what it really takes to go from lapidaph in photonics. And that's also, you know, why we partner with organizations like Silicon Catalyst is because they bring that semiconductor great discipline, you know, in that conversation. That's also why we'll have Dan Armbrust and Laura Swan from Silicon Catalyst taking the stage two on that day. Yeah, I was looking at your program very, very well thought out. So what was your logic in curating the program?

So at the very start, we asked ourselves, you know, what are the conversations that the photonics industry absolutely needs to have right now? Now, at this point, we talk about scaling, manufactability, advanced packaging, integration, reliability and cost, but also how system requirements are shaping these architectures. Now, so the topics were clear, and now after we thought that out, and then we need, had to work it backwards to make sure that the right voices were going to be in the room. And that includes, you know, system and product leaders that define the real requirements, but also startups that are pushing the technology and manufacturing and packaging experts who understand the constraints, but also, you know, having investors there that have to

make decisions on these in certain, you know, technologies in a way. So the goal was not to showcase individual companies, but it's really to create a right mix of perspective so that the discussion you know is going to be valuable and and now we've been very lucky to have great speakers confirmed like Andy Bechtlesheim from Arista Ashkense Yeti from Nvidia Nicholas Harris from Light Matter Dave Lazowski from Celestial and many many more those are big names I know quite a few of them so what should attendees expect to walk away with I think attendees should expect to walk away with clarity. And clarity in where Photonix is, you know, ready today and where expectations maybe need to be adjusted

and who they actually need to collaborate with next to solve some of their challenges. For startups, that might mean, you know, a clearer view on customers and manufacturing requirements. For system companies and investors, that could be a more realistic understanding of the timelines and the risks involved. So that kind of clarity is what allows ecosystems to move from expectations to scaling technology. And who is the target audience and how can they register? We'll put a link to the registration in the description, but who's the audience? Yeah, so I think PICSummit USA is really for people that are actively shaping. the photonics ecosystem. I'm talking about founders, system companies, investors,

foundries, packaging partners. It's intentionally invitation only, like you mentioned, to keep the discussion focused and actionable. But if you did not have a invitation yet, you can request a ticket through PIC SummitUSA.com and as you say, you will put the link as well in the article. So anyone is, is, any, people are welcome that, who believe that they can you know be part of that conversation they're more than welcome to join us yeah and it looks like you have exhibitors you start at lunch and you go through dinner and networking is that correct yeah correct so people are welcome to join for lunch we're gonna have registrations walk in lunch I think it's around noon-ish we'll start the

program just before 1 p.m. we'll have a couple of coffee breaks in between and then we'll have a networking reception with a walking dinner at the end around 6 p.m. And for those that are staying in San Francisco, we'll have free shuttle buses to bring them back to the city. Sounds great. I just registered, so I'll see you there. Thanks then. Looking forward to seeing you there. That concludes our podcast. Thank you all for listening and have a great day.