Multi-wavelength transceiver integration on SOI for high-performance computing system applications

We present a vision for transceiver integration on a 3 µm SOI waveguide platform for systems scalable to Pb/s. We also present experimental results from the first building blocks developed in the EU-funded RAPIDO project. At 1.3 µm wavelength 80 Gb/s per wavelength is to be achieved using hybrid integration of III-V optoelectronics on SOI. Goals include athermal operation, low-loss I/O coupling, advanced modulation formats and packet switching. An example of the design results is an interposer chip that consists of 12 µm thick SOI waveguides locally tapered down to 3 µm to provide low-loss coupling between an optical single-mode fiber array and the 3 µm SOI chip. First example of experimental results is a 4x4 cyclic AWGs with 5 nm channel spacing, 0.4 dB/facet fiber coupling loss, 3.5 dB center-tocenter loss, and -23 dB adjacent channel crosstalk in 3.5x1.5 mm² footprint. The second example result is a new VCSEL design that was demonstrated to have up to 40 Gb/s operation at 1.55 µm.