Monolithic silicon photonics in a sub-100nm SOI CMOS microprocessor foundry: progress from devices to systems
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Ram_Monolithic silicon.pdf
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5.28 MB
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Author(s)
Wade, Mark T.
Orcutt, Jason Scott
Shainline, Jeffrey M.
Sun, Chen
Georgas, Michael
Moss, Benjamin Roy
Kumar, Rajesh
Alloatti, Luca
Pavanello, Fabio
Chen, Yu-Hsin
Date Issued
April 2015
Journal
Proceedings of SPIE--the International Society for Optical Engineering
Publisher
SPIE
Citation
Popovic, Milos A., Mark T. Wade, Jason S. Orcutt, Jeffrey M. Shainline, Chen Sun, Michael Georgas, Benjamin Moss, et al. “Monolithic Silicon Photonics in a Sub-100nm SOI CMOS Microprocessor Foundry: Progress from Devices to Systems.” Edited by Graham T. Reed and Michael R. Watts. Silicon Photonics X (April 3, 2015). © 2015 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We review recent progress of an effort led by the Stojanović (UC Berkeley), Ram (MIT) and Popović (CU Boulder) research groups to enable the design of photonic devices, and complete on-chip electro-optic systems and interfaces, directly in standard microelectronics CMOS processes in a microprocessor foundry, with no in-foundry process modifications. This approach allows tight and large-scale monolithic integration of silicon photonics with state-of-the-art (sub-100nm-node) microelectronics, here a 45nm SOI CMOS process. It enables natural scale-up to manufacturing, and rapid advances in device design due to process repeatability. The initial driver application was addressing the processor-to-memory communication energy bottleneck. Device results include 5Gbps modulators based on an interleaved junction that take advantage of the high resolution of the sub-100nm CMOS process. We demonstrate operation at 5fJ/bit with 1.5dB insertion loss and 8dB extinction ratio. We also demonstrate the first infrared detectors in a zero-change CMOS process, using absorption in transistor source/drain SiGe stressors. Subsystems described include the first monolithically integrated electronic-photonic transmitter on chip (modulator+driver) with 20-70fJ/bit wall plug energy/bit (2-3.5Gbps), to our knowledge the lowest transmitter energy demonstrated to date. We also demonstrate native-process infrared receivers at 220fJ/bit (5Gbps). These are encouraging signs for the prospects of monolithic electronics-photonics integration. Beyond processor-to-memory interconnects, our approach to photonics as a “More-than- Moore” technology inside advanced CMOS promises to enable VLSI electronic-photonic chip platforms tailored to a vast array of emerging applications, from optical and acoustic sensing, high-speed signal processing, RF and optical metrology and clocks, through to analog computation and quantum technology.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2084604
