SYDNEY -- The Australian Photonics CRC has won $9.5 m Major National Research Facility funding from the Commonwealth’s Major National Research Facilities Program to tackle the “world wide wait” on the Internet by developing a new generation of miniature communications systems. The grant will be used to establish the Bandwidth Foundry at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney. This national facility will provide a platform for research leading to the miniaturisation of high-speed optical fibre communications systems. The current technology challenge is to produce low cost, mass manufacturable photonic chips that will see optical fibres connected to homes and offices capable of delivering real broadband to the customer. Photonic chips will be used to process and aggregate information for efficient transportation on optical fibre networks. Low cost photonic chips that integrate the functionality now provided by myriad high cost components will unleash the latent capacity of our optical fibre networks and make it economically viable for our carriers to take optical fibre the last few hundred metres – to the home or office. The Australian Photonics CRC