Nanowerk  April 20, 2018
An international team of researchers (Belgium, USA – MIT, UC Berkeley, University of Colorado, Boston University, SUNY Albany, Switzerland) introduced photonics into bulk silicon CMOS chips using a layer of polycrystalline silicon deposited on silicon oxide islands fabricated alongside transistors. They implemented integrated high-speed optical transceivers in this platform that operate at ten gigabits per second, composed of millions of transistors, and arrayed on a single optical bus for wavelength division multiplexing. By decoupling the formation of photonic devices from that of transistors, this integration approach can achieve many of the goals of multi-chip solutions, but with the performance, complexity and scalability of systems on a chip… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Researchers have developed a technique for assembling on-chip optics and electronic separately, which enables the use of more modern transistor technologies. (Image: Amir Atabaki)