Silicon photonics for microelectronic op-chip optical interconnects

The on-chip interconnects technology has faced a number of challenges in recent years. With the significant advancement in silicon integrated photonics, possibility of introducing on-chip optical interconnects for future gigascale circuits has been explored intensely in the last decade. The successful development of on-chip optical interconnects will be one of the major moves for the next technology revolution for the integrated circuits. Over the years, technology for making optical micro-waveguides based on CMOS processes has been developed and there are several proposals for making Si-based light sources. This talk highlights some attempts reported recently for making waveguide and light emitting devices based on the conventional CMOS processes. These technologies look promising for the on-chip optical interconnects in future gigascale CMOS technology.