Experimental demonstration of a 160 Gbit/s 3D-integrated silicon photonics receiver with 1.2-pJ/bit power consumption

Abstract

By using the flip-chip bonding technology, a high performances 3D-integrated silicon photonics receiver is demonstrated. The receiver consists of a high-speed germanium-silicon (Ge-Si) photodetector (PD) and a commercial linear transimpedance amplifiers (TIA). The overall 3 dB bandwidth of the receiver is around 38 GHz with appropriate gain. Based on this 3D-integrated receiver, the 56, 64, 90, 100 Gbit/s non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and 112, 128 Gbit/s four-level pulse amplitude (PAM-4) modulation clear openings of eye diagrams are experimentally obtained. The sensitivities of -10, -5.2 dBm and -6.6, -2.7 dBm were obtained for 112 Gbit/s NRZ and 160 Gbit/s PAM-4 at hard-decision forward err correction (HD-FEC,3.8 × 10−3) and KP4 forward err correction (KP4-FEC,2 × 10−4) threshold, respectively. Additionally, the lowest power consumption of this receiver is about 1.2 pJ/bit, which implies its huge potential for short-reach data center applications.

A 100 GBd PAM-4 optical receiver using a SiGe BiCMOS traveling-wave EIC and a silicon photonic Ge photodetector

“…In [6] the BW is also higher than in this work, but the bit rate is limited to 100 Gbps. The closest competitor in terms of bit rate achieves 160 Gbps PAM-4 [5] but requires a 51-tap FFE. For our demonstration, a simple on-scope 5-tap FFE sufficed.…”

Nonlinear Optical SiC:C Microring for an ASK-to-PSK Gate and NOT + XOR Logic beyond 10 Gbit/s

“…Owing to the mature technology of silicon-based semiconductor processing, the silicon photonic devices with the high modulation speed, low consumption, or broad linewidth have been developed over decades for next-generation optical interconnect communication. − For future integrated circuits, the optical waveguide that handles high data rates with low power consumption is the alternative to replace the electric cable with a finite bandwidth-length product. For long-distance communication, the silicon photonic platforms also play important roles in breakthrough advantages beyond 50 Gbit/s per channel. − Versatile fundamental integrated on-chip devices including optical switches, − modulators, − filters, − and detectors − have been demonstrated for future development. Most works used the electrical-to-optical mechanism to achieve high-speed modulation.…”