Low-power photonic components for optical interconnects

Silicon-based optical interconnects are expected to provide high bandwidth and low power consumption solutions for chip-level communication applications, due to their electronics integration capability, proven manufacturing record and attractive price volume curve. In order to compete with electrical interconnects, the energy requirement is projected to be sub-pJ per bit for an optical link in chip to chip communication. Such low energies pose significant challenges for the optical components used in these applications. In this paper, we review several low power photonic components developed at Kotura for DARPA's Ultraperformance Nanophotonic Intrachip Communications (UNIC) project. These components include high speed silicon microring modulators, wavelength (de)multiplexers using silicon cascaded microrings, low power electro-optic silicon switches, low loss silicon routing waveguides, and low capacitance germanium photodetectors. Our microring modulators demonstrate an energy consumption of ~ 10 fJ per bit with a drive voltage of 1 V. Silicon routing waveguides have a propagation loss of < 0.3 dB/cm, enabling a propagation length of a few tens of centimeters. The germanium photodetectors can have a low device capacitance of a few fF, a high responsivity up to 1.1 A/W and a high speed of >30 GHz. These components are potentially sufficient to construct a full optical link with an energy consumption of less than 1 pJ per bit.

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