Research program on high bandwidth optical I/O announced

According to the ITRS roadmap, the aggregate data rate for off chip communication is expected to exceed 100Tb/s by 2020. However, no known manufacturable solution for achieving such bandwidth density is currently available. imec suggests that silicon photonics could be a prime candidate to deliver a technology solution for enabling cost effective short-range optical links. Silicon based optical interconnects have high speed, a compact footprint, low power consumption, are low cost and scalable with existing cmos processing infrastructure. imec's new optical I/O program has been set up to develop a silicon photonics solution for addressing the upcoming scaling challenges in interconnecting cmos chips. In collaboration with its industrial partners, the program includes a two fold path finding effort. Firstly, the complete electrical to optical to electrical (EOE) transmission path will be modelled for various technological implementations and benchmarked against the requirements for various applications, as well as against existing solutions. This benchmarking effort will focus on optimising bandwidth density, power consumption, thermal robustness and cost at the system level. Secondly, demonstrators of the full optical link will be realised in silicon, including all required components such as optical modulators, germanium-based photodetectors, and thermally robust optical multiplexers, as well as their cmos based driving and receiving circuits. The optical I/O IIAP is part of imec's core program in which imec works together with leading IC companies on future cmos technologies. In this framework, imec's core partners will actively participate in the IIAP at imec in Leuven, Belgium.