An Energy-Efficient Silicon Microring Resonator-Based Photonic Transmitter

Abstract

Silicon microring resonator-based photonic interconnects offer an attractive substitute to conventional electrical interconnects due to the negligible frequency-dependent channel loss and high bandwidth density offered via wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). This paper presents silicon photonic transmitters employing ring modulators designed in a 130-nm SOI process wire bonded with CMOS drivers in a 1-V standard 65-nm CMOS technology. The transmitter circuits incorporate high-swing ( $2V_{pp}$ and $4V_{pp}$ ) drivers with nonlinear pre-emphasis to bypass the bandwidth limitation of the carrier-injection silicon ring modulator. The first-generation silicon ring modulator wire bonded with $4V_{pp}$ CMOS driver achieves 12.7-dB extinction ratio at 5 Gb/s with 4.04-mW power consumption, while the second-generation ring modulator wire bonded with $2V_{pp}$ CMOS driver achieves 9.2-dB extinction ratio at 9 Gb/s with 4.32 mW. Both of these measurements exclude the laser power.