Intrachip clock signal distribution via si-based optical interconnect

The Optical clocking has emerged as an innovative alternative approach to the electrical clocking, in order to overcome the difficulties associated with electrical interconnects in the synchronization of high-performance multi-GHz microprocessors. Because the on-chip optical interconnect must be embedded in current Si microprocessors, the optical clocking requires that the electronic-photonic integrated circuits (EPIC) consisting of Si-based photonic devices be developed on Si CMOS platform. We have identified the H-tree waveguide network and waveguide-integrated photodetectors as key photonic devices required for intrachip optical clocking for microprocessors. We have demonstrated successful optical signal distribution through SiON, waveguide H-tree network with 64 fanouts. A variable bending radius approach in H-tree design was used to optimize the performance of the optical clock signal distribution. The conventional y-splitter showed significant optical loss and unequal power-splitting ratio, which becomes increasingly problematic as the number of levels of a H-tree network increases and can result in increased skew. We devised a novel extended offset splitter, which reduced the splitting loss to < 3% and demonstrated 49:51 power split ratio. We have fabricated Si vertical p-i-n photodetectors that are monolithically integrated with compact silicon-oxynitride channel waveguides.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Ahn, Donghwan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lionel C. Kimerling.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/38590

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/38590