Photonics integration for optical interconnects

Luxtera has used freescale semiconductor´s 0.13 μm SOI process to implement optical communications capability for high bandwidth LAN, SAN and chip-to-chip communications. These optical transceiver cores operate at 10 Gbps and offer superior reach, power consumption, latency, die area, and scalability compared to emerging standards for electrical interconnect. They are implemented alongside SOI CMOS circuitry in the same die. Thus, for the first time in history, high speed optical communications directly between silicon die can be accomplished at a price/performance point superior to traditional electrical interconnect. In order to accomplish this, a complete suite of optical functions had to be developed, including fiber coupling technology, high-speed and compact silicon modulators, integrated photodetectors and optical mux/demux. Of course, all of these functions are integrated alongside significant amounts of CMOS circuitry, including RF modulator drivers and transimpedance amplifiers. In this talk, description of each of these key components and a presentation of key results will be given.