Si Microphotonics for Optical Interconnection

Summary. Silicon microphotonics is to integrate photonic functionalities on Si chips to extend Si chip performances and eventually realize electronic and photonic integrated circuits (EPICs). The current trend for photonic integration on silicon is making all photonic devices compatible to complementary metal oxide semiconduc-tor (CMOS) technology. The first part of this Chapter describes a fractal optical clocking architecture as a new breakthrough to enhance clocking speed far beyond the Semiconductor Technology Roadmap. The possibility of faster clocking by orders of magnitude is demonstrated. The second part deals with CMOS compatibilities of photodetectors for on-chip monolithic integration. Defect- and strain-engineered Ge photodetectors on Si are broadband and have C- and L-bands detection capability. Finally a potential market for optical interconnection on ∼1m distance scales is discussed. Si large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs) together with optical fiber commu-nications have been the building blocks of the internet society. Now, ther