First 40 Giga-bits per second Silicon Laser Modulator Dr. Mario Paniccia Intel Fellow Director, Photonics Technology Lab 1
Agenda What We Are Announcing Silicon Photonics Re-cap Tera-Scale Computing Why is a Silicon Laser Modulator Needed? How Does the Silicon Laser Modulator Work Results Summary 2
What We are Announcing Research Breakthrough: 1st 40 Giga-bits per second Silicon Laser Modulator Fastest Laser Modulator made from silicon Capable of putting one s s and zeros on a beam of laser light 40 Billion time per second Intel s s Vision Use silicon and CMOS manufacturing techniques to build integrated d optical devices Build Tera-Bit per second optical links to enable Tera-scale computing One Tera-bit = 1,000 Billion bits Background Intel announced a One Giga-bit per second silicon laser modulator in 2004 We have now achieved new milestone of 40 Giga-bits/second (Gb/s) Using 25 Silicon Laser Modulators at 40Gb/s we can build a Tera-bit per second Optical link (25 x 40 Gb/s = 1 Terabit/s) Achieving 40Gb/s using a silicon laser modulator is a significant milestone for silicon photonics in that we ve matched the data transmission speed records set by fastest III-V optical devices available today, said Justin Rattner, Intel Chief Technology Officer. We see silicon photonics at the heart of future, low cost optical interconnects for tera-scale computing. Justin Rattner, Intel Chief Technology Officer 3
The Photonic Dilemma Fiber can carry much more bandwidth than copper However, it is much more expensive.. 4
Photonics: The technology of emission, transmission, control and detection of light (photons) aka fiber- optics & opto-electronics Today: Most photonic devices made with exotic materials, expensive processing, complex packaging Silicon Photonics Vision: Research effort to develop photonic devices using silicon as base material and do this using standard, high volume silicon manufacturing techniques in existing fabs Benefit: Bring volume economics to optical communications 5
Intel s s Silicon Photonics Research Continuous Wave Silicon Raman Laser (Feb 05) Electrically Pumped Hybrid Silicon laser (September 2006) 1GHz ( Feb 04) 1GHz 10 Gb/s (Apr (Apr 05) 40 Gb/s (Jul 07) We have achieved 40 Gb/s milestone Focus is now on integration 6
Tera-leap to Parallelism: ENERGY-EFFICIENT PERFORMANCE Hyper-Threading Instruction level parallelism Dual Core 10 s to 100 s of cores Quad-Core The days of single-core chips Era of Tera-Scale Computing More performance Using less energy TIME All this compute capability may require high speed optical links 7
Future Physical I/O for Tera-scale Computing Core-Core: Core: On Die Interconnect fabric Memory: Package 3D Stacking Chip-Chip: Chip: Fast Copper FR4 or Flex cables Memory Memory Tera-scale CPU Memory CPU 2 Memory Board-board interconnect: electrical or optical? Integrated Silicon Photonics chips 8
A Terabit Optical Chip Optical Fiber Multiplexor 25 modulators at 40Gb/s 25 hybrid lasers An future integrated terabit per second optical link on a single chip 9
Why is a Silicon Laser Modulator Needed On Off On-Off As the laser heats and cools the pulses get distorted This causes errors in the data transmission 1 01 01 01 01 On Off On-Off Solution: Externally Modulate the Laser 1 01 0 1 High fidelity pulses with ext. mod 10
Wave Mechanics of Light CONSTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE DESTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE π out of phase (or 180 degrees) 11
Silicon Laser Optical Modulator PHASE SHIFTER OFF Phase shift OFF light stays IN phase Light is split into two paths PHASE SHIFTER OFF Digital 1 : constructive interference Phase Shifter - A transistor-like device 12
Silicon Laser Optical Modulator PHASE SHIFTER ON Light is OUT of phase Light is split into two paths PHASE SHIFTER ON Digital 0 : destructive interference Phase Shifter - A transistor-like device 13
Optically encoding Data LASER DRIVER 101010 PHASE SHIFTER ON 10101010 PHASE SHIFTER ON 14
Silicon Laser Modulator This new generation modulator is smaller and consumes less power than the first generation modulator that operated at 10 Gb/s Based on traveling wave design Optimized optical and electrical RF signaling characteristics (high( speed transmission traces, termination resistance matching, parasitics reduced) Results presented at an invited talk at the IPNRA (Integrated( Photonics and Nanophotonics Research and Applications) July 2007 Salt Lake City, Utah USA Metal contact Phase shifter waveguide Silicon modulator on PCB SEM picture of p-n phase shifter 15
40Gb/s Silicon Laser Modulator 16
40Gb/s Data Transmission Results presented at IPNRA 1 Optical Roll-off Normalized Modulator Output (db) 0-1 -2-3 -4-5 -6-7 -8 0 1 10 100 Frequency (GHz) ~30 GHz roll-off 40Gb/s Data Transmission Optical 3 db roll off ~30 GHz Worlds Fastest Silicon Laser Modulator 17
Integrating into a Tera-scale System This transmitter would be combined with a receiver Rx Tx Which could then be built into an integrated, silicon photonic chip!! 18
Integrating into a Tera-scale System This integrated silicon photonic chip could then be integrated into computer boards And this board could be integrated into a Tera- scale system 19
Summary Research Breakthrough: 1st 40 Giga-bits per second Silicon Laser Modulator Fastest Laser Modulator made from silicon Capable of putting one s s and zeros on a beam of laser light 40 Billion time per second Intel s s Vision: Use silicon and CMOS manufacturing techniques to build integrated d optical devices Build Tera-Bit per second optical links to enable Tera-scale computing One Tera-bit = 1,000 Billion bits Background Intel announced a One Giga-bit per second silicon laser modulator in 2004 We have now achieved new milestone of 40 Giga-bits/second (Gb/s) Using 25 Silicon Laser Modulators at 40Gb/s we can build a Tera-bit per second Optical link (25 x 40 Gb/s = 1 Terabit/s) Achieving 40Gb/s using a silicon laser modulator is a significant milestone for silicon photonics in that we ve matched the data transmission speed records set by fastest III-V optical devices available today, said Justin Rattner, Intel Chief Technology Officer. We see silicon photonics at the heart of future, low cost optical interconnects for tera-scale computing. Justin Rattner, Intel Chief Technology Officer 20
Thank You More Information is at: Research blog: http://blogs.intel.com/research/ High res pictures and press info: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/research/4gmodulator.htm Silicon Photonics Web-site http://www.intel.com/research/platform/sp/ 21