An all-solid-state, WDM silicon photonic digital link for chip-to-chip communications

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We describe a multiwavelength hybrid-integrated solid-state link on a 3 µm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nanophotonic platform. The link spans three chips and employs germanium-silicon electroabsorption waveguide modulators, silicon transport waveguides, echelle gratings for multiplexing and demultiplexing, and pure germanium waveguide photo-detectors. The 8λ WDM Tx and Rx components are interconnected via a routing "bridge" chip using edge-coupled optical proximity communication. The packaged, retimed digital WDM link is demonstrated at 10 Gb/s and 10(-12) BER, with three wavelength channels consuming an on-chip power below 1.5 pJ/bit, excluding the external laser power.