CMOS-photonics co-design of an integrated DAC-less PAM-4 silicon photonic transmitter

Codesign and integration of optical modulators and CMOS drivers is crucial for high-speed silicon photonic (SiP) transmitters to reach their full potential for low-cost, low-power electronic-photonic integrated systems. We present a CMOS-driven SiP multi-level optical transmitter implemented using a commercially available lateral p-n junction process. It uses a Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) segmented to increase speed and to lower the required power on a per segment basis to a level achievable with CMOS. A multi-channel driver is designed and implemented in 130 nm RF CMOS, providing a swing of 4 V in a push-pull configuration at 20 Gbaud. Binary data at the CMOS input is manipulated via digital logic to produce the proper per-segment drive signals to generate a four-level pulse-amplitude modulation optical signal. Multi-level modulation is achieved using only binary signals as input (DAC-less). Cosimulation of the optical and electrical circuits shows good agreement with experiment. Reliable transmission is achieved without post-compensation at 28 Gb/s, and at 38 Gb/s when using post-compensation