CEA-Leti has declared that a team of European companies and scientists has achieved a key breakthrough in the fabrication of silicon photonics circuits in CMOS foundries.
The HELIOS Project team achieved one of the main aims of the project required for construction and optimization of the complete supply chain for fabrication of complicated operational silicon- photonics equipments from the design stage to the process stage using a 40Gb/s optical modulator in silicon holding a record extinction ratio of 10dB, which is the difference in power between the 1 and 0 data levels.
Along with the 40Gb/s modulator, HELIOS associates are constructing the fabrication supply chain via numerous complicated photonic ICs catering to various commercial requirements, including a photonic QAM-10Gb/s wireless transmission unit, a 16x10 Gb/s transceiver, and a mixed-analog and digital-transceiver unit for multifunction antennas.
The design and characterization of the modulator circuit was provided by Silicon Photonics Group staff, Advanced Technology Institute, at the University of Surrey in UK, and was fabricated using a CMOS-compliant operation by Leti, the organizer of the project. HELIOS associates will demonstrate the results at the eighth International Conference about Group IV Photonics to be held in London between September 14 and September 16.
Silicon photonics is probably the only optimal solution to satisfy high-volume market demand and has recently created a high level of interest towards optical interconnects in microelectronic circuits and optical telecommunications.
CMOS photonics may enable economical solutions spanning applications including optical interconnections between semiconductor chips and circuit boards, optical sensing, optical communications and optical signal processing, and biological applications.
Source: http://www.helios-project.eu/