An electronic–photonic microprocessor chip manufactured using a conventional microelectronics foundry process is demonstrated; the chip contains 70 million transistors and 850 photonic components and directly uses light to communicate to other chips. The rapid transfer of data between chips in computer systems and data centres has become one of the bottlenecks in modern information processing. One way of increasing speeds is to use optical connections rather than electrical wires and the past decade has seen significant efforts to develop silicon-based nanophotonic approaches to integrate such links within silicon chips, but incompatibility between the manufacturing processes used in electronics and photonics has proved a hindrance. Now Chen Sun et al. describe a 'system on a chip' microprocessor that successfully integrates electronics and photonics yet is produced using standard microelectronic chip fabrication techniques. The resulting microprocessor combines 70 million transistors and 850 photonic components and can communicate optically with the outside world. This result promises a way forward for new fast, low-power computing systems architectures. Data transport across short electrical wires is limited by both bandwidth and power density, which creates a performance bottleneck for semiconductor microchips in modern computer systems—from mobile phones to large-scale data centres. These limitations can be overcome1,2,3 by using optical communications based on chip-scale electronic–photonic systems4,5,6,7 enabled by silicon-based nanophotonic devices8. However, combining electronics and photonics on the same chip has proved challenging, owing to microchip manufacturing conflicts between electronics and photonics. Consequently, current electronic–photonic chips9,10,11 are limited to niche manufacturing processes and include only a few optical devices alongside simple circuits. Here we report an electronic–photonic system on a single chip integrating over 70 million transistors and 850 photonic components that work together to provide logic, memory, and interconnect functions. This system is a realization of a microprocessor that uses on-chip photonic devices to directly communicate with other chips using light. To integrate electronics and photonics at the scale of a microprocessor chip, we adopt a ‘zero-change’ approach to the integration of photonics. Instead of developing a custom process to enable the fabrication of photonics12, which would complicate or eliminate the possibility of integration with state-of-the-art transistors at large scale and at high yield, we design optical devices using a standard microelectronics foundry process that is used for modern microprocessors13,14,15,16. This demonstration could represent the beginning of an era of chip-scale electronic–photonic systems with the potential to transform computing system architectures, enabling more powerful computers, from network infrastructure to data centres and supercomputers.

/pdf/single-chip-microprocessor-that-communicates-directly-using-3e2ii9mb9i.pdf

Single-chip microprocessor that communicates directly using light

A lithographic apparatus configured to project a patterned beam of radiation onto a target portion of a substrate is disclosed. The apparatus includes a first radiation dose detector and a second radiation dose detector, each detector comprising a secondary electron emission surface configured to receive a radiation flux and to emit secondary electrons due to the receipt of the radiation flux, the first radiation dose detector located upstream with respect to the second radiation dose detector viewed with respect to a direction of radiation transmission, and a meter, connected to each detector, to detect a current or voltage resulting from the secondary electron emission from the respective electron emission surface.

Lithographic apparatus, and device manufacturing method

A system, method, and computer program product are provided for a memory system. The system includes a first semiconductor platform including at least one first circuit, and at least one additional semiconductor platform stacked with the first semiconductor platform and including at least one additional circuit.

System, method, and computer program product for improving memory systems

Graphene is an ideal material for optoelectronic applications. Its photonic properties give several advantages and complementarities over Si photonics. For example, graphene enables both electro-absorption and electro-refraction modulation with an electro-optical index change exceeding 10$^{-3}$. It can be used for optical add-drop multiplexing with voltage control, eliminating the current dissipation used for the thermal detuning of microresonators, and for thermoelectric-based ultrafast optical detectors that generate a voltage without transimpedance amplifiers. Here, we present our vision for grapheme-based integrated photonics. We review graphene-based transceivers and compare them with existing technologies. Strategies for improving power consumption, manufacturability and wafer-scale integration are addressed. We outline a roadmap of the technological requirements to meet the demands of the datacom and telecom markets. We show that graphene based integrated photonics could enable ultrahigh spatial bandwidth density , low power consumption for board connectivity and connectivity between data centres, access networks and metropolitan, core, regional and long-haul optical communications.

Graphene-Based Integrated Photonics For Next-Generation Datacom And Telecom

Intrachip optical interconnects can outperform electrical wires but the required parameters for optical components are yet unknown. Here the ITRS is used as a reference point to derive the requirements that optical components must meet.

https://www.csl.cornell.edu/%7Ealbonesi/research/papers/groupIV.pdf

On-chip optical interconnect roadmap: challenges and critical directions

This paper describes both a near term and a long term optical interconnect solution, the first based on a packaging architecture and the second based on a monolithic photonic CMOS architecture. The packaging-based optical I/O architecture implemented with 90 nm CMOS transceiver circuits, 1 × 12 VCSEL/detector arrays and polymer waveguides achieves 10 Gb/s/channel at 11 pJ/b. A simple TX pre-emphasis technique enables a potential 18 Gb/s at 9.6 pJ/b link efficiency. Analysis predicts this architecture to reach less than 1 pJ/b at the 16 nm CMOS technology node. A photonic CMOS process enables higher bandwidth and lower energy-per-bit for chip-to-chip optical I/O through integration of electro-optical polymer based modulators, silicon nitride waveguides and polycrystalline germanium (Ge) detectors into a CMOS logic process. Experimental results for the photonic CMOS ring resonator modulators and Ge detectors demonstrate performance above 20 Gb/s and analysis predicts that photonic CMOS will eventually enable energy efficiency better than 0.3 pJ/b with 16 nm CMOS. Optical interconnect technologies such as these using multi-lane communication or wavelength division multiplexing have the potential to achieve TB/s interconnect and enable platforms suitable for the tera-scale computing era.

Optical I/O technology for tera-scale computing

Scaled ferroelectric transistors (L g =76 nm) in a back- gated configuration are fabricated with a channel-last process flow. Using this approach, optimization of the ferroelectric gate oxide film can be decoupled from that of the semiconductor channel to reduce parasitic interfaces. As a result, ferroelectric transistors with 3σ memory window for fast programming time of 10 ns (including an instantaneous read-after-write) at 1.8 V and high endurance of 1012 cycles are demonstrated for the first time.

High Speed Memory Operation in Channel-Last, Back-gated Ferroelectric Transistors

A measurement system is provided that includes a probe device having an integrated amplifier. The integrated amplifier may be a transimpedence amplifier that amplifies input current to an output voltage.

Current probe device having an integrated amplifier

Embodiments of the present invention describe a waveguide-based photodetector device and its methods of fabrication. The waveguide photodetector device comprises a substrate having a cladding structure formed thereon. A waveguide element for receiving optical signals is disposed within the cladding structure. A portion of the waveguide element is encapsulated by a photodetector element that detects the optical signal received by the waveguide element and generates an electrical signal based on the optical signal. Encapsulating the waveguide element in the photodetector element improves coupling efficiency and enables a waveguide photodetector device with higher speeds and higher responsivity.

Waveguide photodetector device and manufacturing method thereof

We have developed high-speed germanium (Ge) photodetectors using standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process technology. We describe the design considerations that led to the devices reported on here. We have characterized these detectors in terms of the following detector metrics: speed, responsivity, dark current and capacitance. The photodetectors exhibit responsivities greater than 0.2 A/W at both 850 and 1550 nm, making them compatible with both long- and short-haul communication systems. Impulse response measurements at both of the above wavelengths indicate 3 dB cutoff frequencies greater than 10 GHz and open eye diagrams have been measured at 20 Gb/s. Dark currents are on the order of 10 to 1000 μA at a bias of 1 V depending on device size. Capacitances measured were on the order of 0.1-10 fF. The performance of the detectors indicates that they are suitable for high speed on-chip optical links. Device simulation models indicate that the fundamental upper limit on the speed of the devices, based on ideal material properties, is high enough to support a number of process generations. Calibration of the models to our experimental data is presented, and areas for improvement are defined.

High-speed CMOS-compatible photodetectors for optical interconnects

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