A 3-D Integrated Intrachip Free-Space Optical Interconnect for Many-Core Chips

Author

Ciftcioglu, Berkehan ; Berman, Rebecca ; Zhang, Jian ; Darling, Zach ; Wang, Shang ; Hu, Jianyun ; Xue, Jing ; Garg, Alok ; Jain, Manish ; Savidis, Ioannis ; Moore, Duncan ; Huang, Michael ; Friedman, Eby G. ; Wicks, Gary ; Wu, Hui

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

Volume

23

Issue

3

fYear

2011

Firstpage

164

Lastpage

166

Abstract

This letter presents a new optical interconnect system for intrachip communications based on free-space optics. It provides all-to-all direct communications using dedicated lasers and photodetectors, hence avoiding packet switching while offering ultra-low latency and scalable bandwidth. A technology demonstration prototype is built on a circuit board using fabricated germanium photodetectors, micro-lenses, commercial vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, and micro-mirrors. Transmission loss in an optical link of 10-mm distance and crosstalk between two adjacent links are measured as 5 and -26 dB, respectively. The measured small-signal bandwidth of the link is 10 GHz.

Keywords

integrated optoelectronics; optical interconnections; 3D integrated intrachip; dedicated lasers; free-space optics; frequency 10 GHz; intrachip communications; many-core chips; optical interconnect; photodetectors; Bandwidth; Lenses; Optical crosstalk; Optical device fabrication; Optical interconnections; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers; Computer networks; lenses; mirrors; optical interconnections; photodiodes; semiconductor lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2010.2093876

Filename

5640649