Research hub Imec has demonstrated a beyond-110 GHz C-band silicon-germanium (SiGe) electro-absorption modulator (EAM) that is manufactured on its 300 mm silicon photonics platform.
The R&D firm said the demonstration is the world’s first in two ways:
- First demo of beyond-110 GHz GeSI EAM operating in the C-band.
- A realization of a net 400 Gb/s per-land transmission with any silicon-based EAM.
The modulator will be a foundation for future optical intensity modulation with direct detection (IM/DD) links that interconnect data center racks and blade servers, Imec said.
“Developing the right modulators to support these optical IM/DD links has been a major research focus, as commonly-used technology options all have drawbacks,” said Cedric Bruynsteen, a researcher at IDLab – an Imec research group at Ghent University in Belgium. “Thin-film lithium niobate Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs), for instance, offer excellent linearity, low optical loss, and very high bandwidth, but their large footprint and contamination challenges hinder wafer-scale integration with advanced CMOS logic, challenging their use for future co-packaged optics and optical I/O. Micro-ring modulators, on the other hand, provide high integration density but require substantial stabilization control circuitry, which limits their energy efficiency.”
