Loading...
News Article

Imec extends silicon photonics portfolio

News

This week, at the 45th European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC), imec, a world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, together with IDLab and the Photonics Research Group, both imec research labs at Ghent University, are presenting key milestone results in silicon photonics (SiPho) technology development. The demonstrated building blocks help pave the way for 400Gb/s and beyond optical links as well as for co-packaged optics in next-generation datacenter switches – key enablers for data transmission in future data centers. Highlights include a TSV-assisted, high-density (Tbps/mm2) CMOS-SiPho transceiver prototype, a low-power 106Gb/s PAM-4 SiPho transmitter, a high-speed Ge/Si avalanche photodetector, and ultra-broadband low-loss single-mode fiber couplers.

The exponential growth of the Internet and its associated applications has pushed datacenters to deploy optical interconnects with continuously increasing performance, and ever smaller power consumption and footprint. In the next few years, data center optical links will be upgraded to 400Gb/s capacity, by aggregating four 100Gb/s PAM-4 lanes per link. As a consequence, the aggregate bandwidth to be handled by a single datacenter switch will increase to 51.2Tb/s, requiring ultra-high-density SiPho transceiver technology, tightly integrated and co-packaged with the switch CMOS chip.

To help industry meeting these challenging scaling requirements, imec and its research labs at Ghent University are developing the key technology building blocks, by leveraging imec’s Si Photonics Platforms on 200mm and 300mm wafers, in combination with high-speed electronics.

Joris Van Campenhout, Program Director Optical I/O at imec commented: “Our R&D programs have delivered substantial improvements at various levels of Si Photonics technology, both at the level of process integration, individual component development as well as at the sub-assembly level. We are thrilled to share our progress with industry and academia at the ECOC conference. We look forward to continue helping the communications industry in Europe and beyond to address the key challenges in developing next-generation optical interconnect technology.”

One of the highlights that imec presents at ECOC is the first through-silicon-via (TSV) assisted hybrid FinFET CMOS/Si-photonics transceiver technology. Operating at a data rate of 40Gb/s non-return-to-zero (NRZ, single lane), this prototype combines ultra-low power consumption with impressive (1Tbps/mm2) bandwidth density, paving the way to ultra-dense co-packaged optics in future datacenter switches.

Imec and Ghent University are also presenting a 106Gb/s transmitter that uses PAM-4 as a modulation format. This 4-level modulation format has recently been adopted by industry as the modulation format of choice for 53GBd single-lane transmission over 500m. Compared to other PAM-4 transmitters, imec’s solution does not use any equalization or digital signal processing and integrates two parallel GeSi electro-absorption modulators. This results in an extremely compact and low-power (1.5pJ/b) transmitter able to transmit data over 1km single-mode fiber at 106Gb/s.

Also, imec demonstrates improved edge coupler designs, based on a hybrid Si/SiN photonic platform. Innovations to the layer stack resulted in better than -1.5dB/fiber coupling efficiency to industry-standard single mode fibers for operation in the O- and C-band. On the receive side, a high-speed Ge/Si avalanche photodetector is presented with a multiplication gain of 8 and 32GHz bandwidth. These avalanche photodetectors show great potential for improving receiver sensitivities and optical link margins at data rates of 40Gb/s and beyond.

Quintessent appoints Bob Nunn chief operating officer
PI to demonstrate new PIC alignment system at Photonics West
Drut launches 2500 product series with CPO for AI datacentres
III-V Epi advocates GaAs for new lasers
Marvell announces new CPO architecture for custom AI accelerators
Printing high-speed modulators on SOI
Photon IP raises €4.75m for advanced PICs
ANELLO Photonics launches Maritime Inertial Navigation System
Aeluma joins AIM Photonics as full industry member
Imec makes breakthrough with GaAs lasers on silicon
POET acquires Super Photonics Xiamen
Voyant Photonics launches affordable Carbon LiDAR
Penn State makes breakthrough in photonic switching
New nanocrystals could lead to more efficient optical computing
QCi awarded NASA contract to apply Dirac-3 photonic optimisation solver
The Netherlands launches ChipNL Competence Centre
TOPTICA to create chip-integrated lasers for quantum PIC project
NSF selects six pilot projects for National Quantum Virtual Laboratory
SiLC Technologies launches Eyeonic Trace Laser Line Scanner
Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub awarded $21.3 million CHIPS Act funding
Cambridge Graphene Centre and CORNERSTONE to participate in PIXEurope
Cost-effective lasers for extended SWIR applications
IBM unveils co-packaged optics technology for AI and datacentres
QCi announces $50 million concurrent stock offerings
CHIPS Act funding to be awarded to Coherent, Skywater, and X-Fab
ERC consolidator grant awarded for optoacoustic neural network project
Imec demonstrates InP chiplet integration on 300 mm RF silicon interposer
Ayar Labs raises $155 million for optical I/O
Celestial AI awarded 2024 Start-up to Watch by Global Semiconductor Alliance
Researchers develop “last missing piece” of silicon photonics
Quantum sensors for controlling prosthetics
UPVfab to participate in European Commission photonic chips project

×
Search the news archive

To close this popup you can press escape or click the close icon.
Logo
x
Logo
×
Register - Step 1

You may choose to subscribe to the PIC Magazine, the PIC Newsletter, or both. You may also request additional information if required, before submitting your application.


Please subscribe me to:

 

You chose the industry type of "Other"

Please enter the industry that you work in:
Please enter the industry that you work in: