23 July 2014

Imec demos 28Gb/s silicon photonics platform for high-density, low-power WDM optical interconnects

At the Integrated Photonics Research, Silicon and Nanophotonics conference (IPR 2014) in San Diego (13-16 July), nanoelectronics research center Imec of Leuven, Belgium demonstrated improved performance of various key building blocks for high-density low-power wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) optical interconnects in silicon. Imec says that the achievements represent a key milestone for its fully integrated silicon photonics platform (iSiPP25G) for high-performance optical transceivers, extending the performance towards 28Gb/s and beyond.

Imec has demonstrated, at wafer-scale, a ring-based WDM filter with an improved thermo-optic tuning efficiency better than 1nm/mW per channel, a thermally tunable 28Gb/s ring modulator with an efficiency of 260pm/mW, and a high-speed germanium photodetector achieving an average responsitivity of 0.85A/W and opto-electrical bandwidth of 50GHz with dark currents at –1.0V below 50nA. The devices are all integrated on Imec’s iSiPP25G platform and extend Imec’s silicon photonics portfolio, which also includes low-loss (<2.5dB/cm) strip waveguides, highly efficient grating couplers (2.5dB insertion loss), and 25Gb/s Mach-Zehnder modulators.

“Imec’s silicon photonics platform provides 28Gb/s performance for integrated photonics circuits for telecom and datacom industries,” says Philippe Absil, program director at Imec. “Companies can benefit from our silicon photonics capability through established standard cells, or explore the functionality of their own designs in multi-project wafer (MPW) runs,” he adds. “Through our MPW offer, fabless R&D teams can access a cost-efficient silicon photonics solution, with state-of-the-art performance, design flexibility and superior CD and thickness control”.

Imec offers the platform for silicon photonics via ePIXfab (supported by Ghent University), Europractice IC service and MOSIS, a provider of low-cost prototyping and small volume production services for custom ICs.The next passive run is now open for registration (deadline 15 September), with first wafers out in January 2015. Imec’s third active ISIPP25G run is now open for registration (deadline 10 November), with first wafers out in June 2015. Support, registration and design kit access will be organized by Imec’s services via its Europractice IC service, in collaboration with worldwide MPW partners.

See related items:

Imec offers fully integrated silicon photonics platform via ePIXfab MPW service

UGent and Imec release IPKISS open-source software platform to integrated photonics design community

Tags: Silicon photonics

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