Merging traditional VLSI with photonics

Abstract

This tutorial paper looks at the possibilities for integrated photonic VLSI systems. It examines the need for "disruptive" technologies to solve the very problems that feature size scaling has introduced in traditional VLSI electronics and the potential for photonics and hybridized systems to solve these problems. It also considers the various challenges involved in constructing a photonic VLSI system as well as the potential pitfalls and disadvantages of this approach. The paper concludes with a discussion of these challenges and benefits by showing steps toward realizing such a system and how addressing problems in computer architecture with an innovative photonics approach can lead to benefits in system wide performance not previously seen with existing approaches.

Ultra‐compact and ultra‐broadband hybrid plasmonic‐photonic vertical coupler with high coupling efficiency, directivity, and polarisation extinction ratio

“…The proposed coupler can be used for coupling PICs to vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays [36][37][38] or as VCs and polarisation diversified power routers for telecommunication PICs. Unlike conventional ECs and VCs, this coupler has a comparable size to CMOS devices in VLSI circuits [39][40][41] (in contrast to ECs and VCs), making it a good candidate for cross-chip and board-to-board optical communication links (photonic-electronic convergence). Such links PEZESHKI ET AL.…”

“…The proposed coupler can be used for coupling PICs to vertical‐cavity surface‐emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays [36–38] or as VCs and polarisation diversified power routers for telecommunication PICs. Unlike conventional ECs and VCs, this coupler has a comparable size to CMOS devices in VLSI circuits [39–41] (in contrast to ECs and VCs), making it a good candidate for cross‐chip and board‐to‐board optical communication links (photonic‐electronic convergence). Such links could offer significant advantages over free‐space optical interconnects [42] due to the small coupler size, the short in‐plane optical path lengths, compatibility with CMOS fabrication and the elimination of vertical alignment and packaging issues.…”

Highly efficient, ultra-compact, and ultra-broadband bidirectional vertical coupler based on spin-directional locking

“…The proposed bidirectional vertical coupler can be used for coupling vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) to PICs, e.g., spin-VCSELs [31][32][33] and liquid crystal (LC)-VCSELs [34,35], and as polarization diversified power routers for telecommunication applications. Due to its compact size, it can be applicable for co-integration with very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuits, making it a good candidate for vertical cross-chip communication [20,[36][37][38][39]. Moreover, due to its bidirectional coupling functionality, it can be attractive for quantum information processing for controlling and sorting quantum states of photons [40,41].…”