A monolithically-integrated optical receiver in standard 45-nm SOI

A monolithically-integrated optical receiver for low-energy on-chip and off-chip communication is presented. The monolithic photodiode integration enables the energy-efficient and high-sensitivity sense-amplifier-based receiver design. The receiver is characterized in situ and shown to operate with μA-sensitivity at 3.5 Gb/s with a power consumption of 180 μW (52 fJ/bit) and area of 108 μm². This work demonstrates that photonics and electronics can be jointly integrated in a standard 45-nm SOI process.