Design of an Energy-Efficient Silicon Microring Resonator-Based Photonic Transmitter
Share- Author(s): Li, Cheng; Chen, Chin-Hui; Wang, Binhao; Palermo, Samuel; Fiorentino, Marco; Beausoleil, Raymond.
- HP Laboratories
- HPL-2014-21
- Keyword(s): Silicon ring resonator; optical interconnects; pre- emphasis
Abstract: Silicon microring resonator-based photonic interconnects offer an attractive substitute to conventional electrical interconnects due to the negligible frequency-dependent channel loss and high bandwidth density offered via wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). This paper presents silicon photonic transmitters employing ring modulators designed in a 130 nm SOI process wire-bonded with CMOS drivers in a 1V standard 65nm CMOS technology. The transmitter circuits incorporate high-swing (2Vpp and 4Vpp) drivers with non-linear pre-emphasis to bypass the bandwidth limitation of the carrier-injection silicon ring modulator. The 1st generation silicon ring modulator wire-bonded with 4Vpp CMOS driver achieves 12.7dB extinction ratio at 5Gb/s with 4.04mW power consumption, while the 2nd generation ring modulator wirebonded with 2Vpp CMOS driver achieves 9.2dB extinction ratio at 9Gb/s with 4.32mW. Both of these measurements exclude the laser power.
16 pages
- External Posting Date: February 21, 2014 [Fulltext]. Approved for External Publication
- Internal Posting Date: February 21, 2014 [Fulltext]