A Silicon Photonics Approach for the Nanotechnology Era

With the further scaling of feature size in the nanotechnology era, on-chip optical interconnection will be essential for meeting high-capacity data transmission needs. This paper describes a silicon photonics approach to achieving cost-effective and low-power-consumption on-chip optical interconnects, which includes the use of a small ceramic electro-optical modulator and a Si nano-photodiode coupled with a SiON/SiO2 waveguide, and discusses it in comparison with other approaches.