High Capacity, Low Power, Short Reach Integrated Silicon Photonic Interconnects

The architecture and component technology of a low power, high capacity, short reach optical interconnect are detailed. Measurements from high-performance 300 mm silicon photonics components that comprise the system are shown, along with a quantum-dot mode-locked laser 20-channel comb source with free space wall plug efficiencies up to 17%, advanced packaging techniques for 3D silicon photonic-electronic integration, and schematics for integrated electronics that control the photonic integrated circuits. Techniques for operating such a system in the presence of changing ambient temperature are addressed. Experiments on a 1 Tbps design are conducted with an optical link experiment indicating sub-picojoule/bit energy consumption at scale.