Photonics-Electronics Convergence System for High Density Inter-Chip Interconnects by Using Silicon Photonics

One of the most serious challenges facing the exponential performance growth in the information industry is a bandwidth bottleneck for inter-chip interconnects. We propose a photonics-electronics convergence system in response to this issue. To demonstrate the feasibility of the system, we fabricated a high density optical interposer integrated with an arrayed laser diode, an optical splitter, optical modulators, photodetectors, and optical waveguides on a single silicon substrate. Using this system, a 12.5-Gbps error free data transmission and a 6.6-Tbps/cm² transmission density were achieved. We believe this technology will solve the bottleneck problem among LSI chips in the future.