Design and optimization of photonic interconnect for heterogenous integration

We propose an interconnect model for multi-chip modules based on integration of a silicon photonic chip with single-mode polymer waveguides fabricated on the low-cost glass interposer technology. We present a detailed power-budget analysis of the on-chip photonic interconnect capable of 1 Tb/s chip-to-chip interconnection bandwidth. For this analysis, we consider state-of-the art photonics foundry modulators and detectors. We also discuss efficient-coupling strategies between the interconnect waveguides and the silicon photonic chip. Our analysis identifies key design parameters impacting the overall performance of the proposed interconnection approach in terms of energy-consumption, distance, and bandwidth and compare its performance with alternative approaches.