We present 1-to-8 wavelength (de-)multiplexer devices based on a binary tree of cascaded Mach-Zehnder-like lattice filters, and manufactured using a 90 nm CMOS-integrated silicon photonics technology. We demonstrate that these devices combine a flat pass-band over more than 50% of the channel spacing with low insertion loss of less than 1.6 dB, and have a small device size of approximately 500 × 400 µm. This makes this type of filters well suited for application as WDM (de-)multiplexer in silicon photonics transceivers for optical data communication in large scale computer systems.

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We report on the fabrication and characterization of silicon oxynitride (SiON) layers for applications as planar optical waveguides in the 1550 nm wavelength region. The optically guiding SiON waveguide core layer has a relatively high refractive index of 1500 and is sandwiched between two silicon oxide cladding layers with a lower refractive index of 1450. The SiON layer is deposited by plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition using silane, nitrous oxide, and ammonia as gaseous precursors. Waveguide bends with a radius of curvature as small as 1.5 mm can be realized because of the high refractive index difference achievable between core and cladding layers. This allows the fabrication of compact, relatively complex integrated optical waveguide devices. The deposition process and the characterization of the SiON films are discussed. The strengths of this high refractive index contrast planar waveguide technology are illustrated using the example of an optical add/drop filter for wavelength division multiplexing applications in the field of optical communication systems. © 2000 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved.

To satisfy the intra- and inter-system bandwidth requirements of future data centers and high-performance computers, low-cost low-power high-throughput optical interconnects will become a key enabling technology. To tightly integrate optics with the computing hardware, particularly in the context of CMOS-compatible silicon photonics, optical printed circuit boards using polymer waveguides are considered as a formidable platform. IBM Research has already demonstrated the essential silicon photonics and interconnection building blocks. A remaining challenge is electro-optical packaging, i.e., the connection of the silicon photonics chips with the system. In this paper, we present a new single-mode polymer waveguide technology and a scalable method for building the optical interface between silicon photonics chips and single-mode polymer waveguides.

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