Compact and large-port-count silicon photonics switches (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

To overcome the energy and capacity constraints in telecom and datacom networks, introduction of energy-efficient optical circuit switching (OCS) to the conventional electrical packet switching network is widely considered. In the OCS, large-port-count optical switches are essential. We have been working on optical switches based on CMOS-compatible silicon photonics that offer fast switching, compactness, low power consumption, and low-cost. Using our 45-nm CMOS process, we have recently demonstrated a low-loss 32 x 32 silicon photonics switch, and their performance improvements of wide operation bandwidth, polarization-independent operation, etc. We review the recent progress of our silicon photonics switches.