Silicon Photonics ISRC Technical Briefing November 16 th

Silicon Photonics ISRC Technical Briefing November 16 th, 2006 Kenneth Shemroske Ph. D Student C. T. Bauer School of Business University of Houston klshemroske@uh. edu Information Systems Research Center

Silicon Photonics • The speed of light, condensed • Fiber optic communications on the semiconductor scale

Why Silicon Photonics? • Speed of optical network communications • Terabits/second • Speed of microprocessor technologies • Dual core/multi core processors • Gigabits/second • Speed of electrical circuits • Start to have problems in low Gigabits/second range “As newer, faster microprocessors roll out, the copper connections that feed those processors within computers and servers will prove inadequate to handle the crushing tides of data. ”( Paniccia & Koehl, 2006).

Background Technology • Optical communications • Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) manufacturing process

Optical Communications Basic components of optical communication networks • Light sources • Optic fiber • Light detectors Photodetector Fiber optic cable Light source Modulator

Light Sources • Light Emitting Diodes (LED), Laser Diodes (LD) • Alignment to fiber optic cables is critical • Back reflection – source of loss • Modulation • Direct modulation - On/off • External modulation – continuous wave (CW) source

Optical Fiber • Propagate a light signal down its length • Single mode vs. multimode fiber • Typical speed is 10 Gigabits per second • Potential for 20 Terabits per second • Currently used in business for wide area links or within data centers as connections to mass storage devices • Currently carries TV signals and data communications to residential customers

Light Detectors • Detect the presence of light • Photodiodes • Reconstruct the data signal from light pulses into electrical signal for further processing

CMOS Manufacturing • Making things smaller, faster, and cheaper • Silicon (Si) based wafer • Unique properties as a conductor/insulator • Inexpensive and abundant (made from sand) (http: //images. google. com/imgres? imgurl=http: //www. cstl. nist. gov/div 837/Division/images/semi 3. gif&imgrefurl=http: //w ww. cstl. nist. gov/div 837/Division/programs/microelect 1. htm&h=409&w=395&sz=84&tbnid=Qfr. AMSY 9 Ct. Ze. M: &tbnh=125&tbnw=121&prev=/images%3 Fq%3 Dsilicon%2 Bwafer%2 Bpicture&start=1&sa= X&oi=images&ct =image&cd=1)

(http: //bwrc. eecs. berkely. edu/classes/icdesign/ee 141_502/lectures/lecture 5 -manufacturing. pdf)

Building Blocks of Silicon Photonics (http: //www. intel. com/research/platform/sp/)

Waveguides Si is transparent in the frequency range of optical communications • Use standard CMOS manufacturing techniques • Produce microchip sized waveguides

Modulation and Photodetection Miniaturized version of modulators on a chip • Successful in the 10 Gb/s speeds by 2004 (Intel) Introduction of Germanium (Ge) to a Si base • 2006 – the first successful Si. Ge photodetctors demonstrated (Intel)

Low Cost Assembly Aligning fiber to the chip • Current alignment of fibers is ‘active’ • Proposed alignment would need to be passive • Manufactured into the Si base with high precision structures (Intel Technology Journal, Volume 8, Issue 2, 2004)

Light Source Until recently – off chip light source with active alignment • High cost, slow manufacturing process Mid 2006 – Intel and University of California Santa Barbara – Hybrid Silicon Laser • ‘Hybrid’ - Combines Si with Indium Phosphide (In. P) (White Paper Research at Intel, A Hybrid Silicon Laser: Silicon photonics technology for future tera-scale computing)

Implications Computers, Servers, Storage systems • Continue high speed data processing from source to CPU potential processing in the Tb/s range • Smaller computers, less heat, elimination of motherboards (by today’s standards • High performance for data/computation intense applications • Databases, Enterprise Resource Planning systems, geophysical research programs, data mining, marketing research Large data files • Video, music, presentation data, multimedia, Virtual Reality – 2 nd Life

Implications Network communication devices • Routers, bridges, hubs • Future multiplexing (White Paper Research at Intel, A Hybrid Silicon Laser: Silicon photonics technology for future tera-scale computing)

Implications Other possibilities • Low cost laser technology for biomedical applications • Real time processing of medical scans at remote locations • High speed links between wireless access points • Processors and memory chips which function with light

Questions?

References Herve, Pierre & Ovadia, Shlomo (2004). Optical Technologies for Enterprise Networks, Intel Technology Journal: Optical Technologies and Applications. Hexus. net (2006). IDF Spring 2005: Silicon Photonics as true Interconnects. Retrieved October 17, 2006 from www. hexus. net/content/item. php? item=1016&redirect=yes Intel Corporation (2006). Hybrid Silicon Laser. Retrieved October 17, 2006 from http: //www. intel. com/research/platform/sp/hybridlaser. htm Intel Corporation (2006 b). Silicon Photonics Research. Retrieved October 17, 2006 from http: //www. intel. com/research/platform/sp Koehl, Sean (2005). Silicon Photonics Could Revolutionize future Servers and Networks. Retrieved October 17, 2006 from http: //www. convergedigest. com/blueprints/ttp 03/bp 1. asp? ID=242&ctgy=Market Matsumomto, Craig (2005). Luxtera Chases Silicon Photonics. Retrieved October 17, 2006 from http: //www. lightreading. com/document. asp? site=lightreading&doc_id=70863 Paniccia, Mario, Krutul, Victor, Jones, Richard, Cohen, Oded, Bowers, John, Fan, Alex & Park, Hyundai (2006). A Hybrid Silicon Laser: Silicon photonics technology for future tera-scale computing, White Paper Research at Intel. Paniccia, Mario & Koehl, Sean (2005). The Silicon Solution. Retrieved October 17, 2006 from http: //www. spectrum. ieee. org/print/1915 Paniccia, Mario (2003), A New Era in Optical Communications, Intel Technology Journal, Volume 7, Issue 4. Retrieved October 19, 2006 from http: //www. intel. com/technology/itj/2004/volume 08 issue 02/foreword. htm Pavesi, L. (2003). Will silicon be the photonic material of the third millennium? , Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. Salib, Mike, Liao, Ling, Jones, Richard, Morse, Mike, Liu, Ansheng, Smara-rubio, Dean, Alduino, Drew, & Paniccia, Mario (2004). Silcon Photonics. Intel Technology Journal: Optical Technologies and Applications. Science. Daily LLC (2006). Breakthrough in Silicon Photonics Devices. Retrieved October 17, 2006 from http: //www. sciencedaily. com/releases/2006/06/060628234005. htm Sematech Inc. (2006). Semiconductor Manufacturing Process. Retrieved October 25, 2006 from http: //www. sematech. org/corporate/news/mfgproc. htm