Communications of the ACM
IBM Demos Cmos Silicon Photonics
Researchers at IBM have demonstrated a fully integrated wavelength multiplexed complementary metal-oxide semiconductor silicon photonics chip.
Credit: IBM
IBM researchers have demonstrated a fully integrated wavelength multiplexed complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) silicon photonics chip, a new technology designed to process both light and electricity on the same chip.
The researchers say the photonics solution could be used on systems-on-a-chip as well as to transport light from chip to chip with a standard edge connector, or just by touching the edges of CMOS chips together for chip-to-chip communications.
The chip combines four 25 Gbps channels into a single 100 Gbps data channel.
"We believe our efforts will result in the first marketable chip to put CMOS and silicon photonics on the same chip," says IBM's Supratik Guha.
IBM also is developing a technology design kit that will enable users to make the chip available to a wide range of technological devices. "Our design kit allows you to build any type of photonic CMOS circuit you need using industry standard design tools for layout, design verification, and parasitic extraction," says IBM's Will Green.
IBM will use the new silicon photonics chips as scalable transceivers, communicating directly between two points instead of using repeaters. The researchers note this method will overcome the bandwidth-distance limitations that plague the vertical cavity surface-emitting laser links used today.
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