High-speed silicon photonic optical interconnects for cryogenic readout (Conference Presentation)

Silicon (Si) photonics is well-positioned to provide high-speed and low-cost optical interconnects. The extraction of data from cryogenically cooled integrated circuits (ICs) has become of great interest for low-power data readout. Utilizing wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), a high capacity optical interconnect can be realized using remoted Si photonic based ring resonator modulators (RRMs). Results include operation up to 20 Gbps and BER < 1E-12 using a 2 Vpp signal, consuming < 100 fJ/bit in the cold environment. Lastly, Si photonic RRM device and interconnect optimizations for operation at temperatures ≤ 77 K will be presented.