On-Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuit toward On-chip Interconnection and Distributed Computing

Heterogeneous material integration technology gives us freedom of material choices in both electronic and photonic devices. In this presentation, status, technology and characteristics of photonic devices in photonic integrated circuits (PICs) on Si (SOI) will be reviewed. Membrane (thin III-V film) PICs can realize low power consumption data transmission on Si substrate. This PICs can be applicable to on-chip interconnection to reduce power dissipation under higher speed transmission. 93 fJ/bit transmission with 20 Gbps has been demonstrated. Hybrid PICs were also demonstrated to realize 10-Tbps-class transceiver with low energy cost for distributed computing. This structure can integrate multiple function and many array devices in one chip. Also, by dense integration, some function of electronics can be moved to photonics part. This enables power consumption reduction.