Polylithic integration of electrical and optical interconnect technologies for gigascale fiber-to-the-chip communication

Abstract

Polylithic integration of electrical and optical interconnect technologies is presented as a solution for merging silicon CMOS and compound semiconductor optoelectronics. In contrast to monolithic and hybrid integration technologies, polylithic integration allows for the elimination of optoelectronic and integrated optic device-related processing from silicon CMOS manufacturing. Printed wiring board-level and compound semiconductor chip-level waveguides terminated with volume grating couplers facilitate bidirectional optical communication, where fiber-to-board and board-to-chip optical coupling occurs through a two-grating (or grating-to-grating) coupling path. A 27% increase in the electrical signal I/O projected by and 33% increase in the number of substrate-level electrical signal interconnect layers implied by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) projections for the 32-nm technology generation are required to facilitate 10 Tb/s aggregate bidirectional fiber-to-the-chip communication. Buried air-gap channels provide for the routing of chip or board-level encapsulated air-clad waveguides for minimum crosstalk and maximum interconnect density. Optical signals routed on-board communicate with on-chip volume grating couplers embedded as part of a wafer-level batch package technology exhibiting compatible electrical and optical input/output interconnects. Measurements of grating-to-grating coupling reveal 31% coupling efficiency between two slab, nonoptimized, nonfocusing volume grating couplers.

Decomposable and Template Polymers: Fundamentals and Applications

“…A high refractive index mismatch between the core and cladding of an optical waveguide will allow high optical confinement, especially for waveguides with sharp bends. Figure 5 shows a series of waveguides with air-cladding fabricated on silicon using a sacrificial templating approach [22]. Thus, optical waveguides could be routed like wires (sharp vertical and horizontal bends).…”

“…SEM cross-sectional view of optical waveguides within an encapsulated air gap. (Reprinted with permission from Mule et al[22]. Copyright 2005 by IEEE).…”

‘trimoda’ Wafer-Level Package: Fully Compatible Electrical, Optical, and Fluidic Chip I/O Interconnects

“…been widely studied [20][21][22][23][24], integrated electrical, optical, and P | | | | _p 1fluidic interconnects are not reported, particularly for IC packaging. The previously reported air-gap technology for optical waveguides [20] provides an opportunity to simultaneously fabricate optical and fluidic interconnects.…”

“…The previously reported air-gap technology for optical waveguides [20] provides an opportunity to simultaneously fabricate optical and fluidic interconnects. In this work, the same sacrificial polymer is patterned to create air-gaps on a substrate for the polymer waveguides (cladding) as well as to form fluidic channels, as shown in Figure 8.…”

Continuous-Wave Electrically Pumped 1.55-$\mu$m Edge-Emitting Platelet Ridge Laser Diodes on Silicon

“…F OR OVER 40 years, silicon has been the material of choice for high-density microelectronics in large part because of the performance advantages of high speed, low static power, complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. With the maturity of silicon fabrication processes gained over this time, and the ever-increasing prominence of silicon devices in the marketplace, researchers are now looking to extend the technology by manufacturing optoelectronic devices directly on silicon substrates for applications such as optical interconnects [1], [2] and biomedical sensors and instrumentation [3], [4].…”