Transcript Silicon Photonics for Optical Buffers and Transmitters

Future Optical Networks:
Impact of Silicon Photonics
John E. Bowers
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California
Santa Barbara
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Where is Silicon Photonics Heading?
Silicon Evanescent Amplifier
• Integration with CMOS electronics
• > 100,000 electronic and photonic
devices/die
• Redundant elements
• Self testing, flexible, software controlled IO
formats
• High yield, High reliability
• Laser, amplifier, modulator, photodetectors,
delay lines, AWGs on chip
Silicon Evanescent Laser
University of California
Santa Barbara
PDs
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What does VLSI Photonics Require?
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> 100,000 electronic and photonic devices/die
CMOS Integration
Redundancy
Self testing, flexible, software controlled IO formats
High yield
High reliability
Laser, amplifier, modulator, photodetectors, low loss
delay lines, optical buffers, AWGs on chip
Suppose Silicon Photonics is able to do this by 2008.
What is the impact in 2010-2015?
University of California
Santa Barbara
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Cost
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6” wafer has 73,000 0.5 mm sized die sites.
Cost per laser: < $0.01
PICs: Laser size: 10x100 microns.
Cost per laser: $0.00002
This is just like estimating the cost of transistors.
They are free. Only the PIC cost matters.
• Lasers, modulators, photodetectors will be free.
University of California
Santa Barbara
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PIC Cost
• CMOS die cost: $1/cm2
• Hybrid silicon evanescent PIC cost: $2/cm2
• PICs with interface and drive electronics, and tens of
lasers, modulators and PDs cost <$1.
Example: Silicon DWDM Transmitter
University of California
Santa Barbara
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Future Optical Networks
• Transceivers will be cheap and ubiquitous; hence
the network must scale to millions or more
transceivers.
• Transmitters and receivers will adapt to the channel
characteristics.
• Data rates will self adjust depending on the channel
quality.
• Networks will be reconfigurable and adaptable.
•Challenge:
•How to make use of billions of elements on the network.
•How to make silicon PICs for a penny a PIC.
University of California
Santa Barbara
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