News
November 03, 2026
ARLINGTON, Va. Raytheon reports that it won a Phase One contract with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop an all-optical processing system for the Photonic Integrated Circuit Architectures for Scalable System Objectives, or PICASSO, program.
Under the terms of the contract, the Raytheon Advanced Technology team is tasked with designing and demonstrating new photonic-circuit technology that uses light rather than electricity to process signals. The use of light means that operators can detect threats sooner, respond more quickly, and maintain better situational awareness in contested environments.
The approach differs from the way today’s photonic circuits operate: Current photonic circuits require conversion of optical signals back into electrical signals to refine and process data. By using photonics and removing that conversion step, all-optical processing maintains signal strength and integrity, even as circuits scale dramatically smaller in size and higher in complexity.
Raytheon’s commercial industry partner Synopsys will work on the PICASSO program; Synopsys will provide design and simulation tools to support development.
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