Open foundry platform for high-performance electronic-photonic integration.

Area of Science:

• Photonics
• Integrated Circuits
• Semiconductor Manufacturing

Background:

• Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology is a mature platform for electronic devices.
• Integrating photonic devices with electronics on a single chip offers potential for high-speed communication and computation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present novel photonic devices fabricated within an existing commercial SOI-CMOS foundry process.
• To demonstrate monolithic integration of photonic devices with transistors without performance degradation.
• To enable a widely available platform for high-performance photonic-electronic integrated circuits (PICs).

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of photonic devices, including waveguides with 3 dB/cm loss, using a commercial 45 nm SOI-CMOS process.
• Monolithic integration of photonic devices with transistors in the same fabrication layer.
• Design and demonstration of an 8-channel optical microring-resonator filter bank and optical modulators controlled by integrated digital circuits.

Main Results:

• Achieved 3 dB/cm waveguide loss in photonic devices.
• Demonstrated monolithic integration with transistors, achieving a 4 ps logic stage delay.
• Transistor performance remained unaffected by the integration of photonic components.
• Successfully demonstrated an 8-channel optical filter bank and optical modulators controlled by digital circuits.

Conclusions:

• The developed device design methodology requires no changes to existing fabrication infrastructure.
• This approach enables a readily accessible platform for high-performance PICs.
• The integration of photonics and electronics on a commercial CMOS platform is feasible and offers significant advantages.