OP: Collaborative Research: Coherent Integrated Si-Photonic Links

我们的社会正处于集成电路技术和制造的新革命的风口浪尖。这项新技术将成功地将电子和光子系统结合在一起，创造出以前无法想象的功能和性能。这种高效利用面积、能量和频谱资源的复杂的片上电子-光子系统在许多通信场景中都是迫切需要的。例如，目前的数据中心和高性能超级计算机都是电力有限的。高带宽密度和高能效的光子互连将使连接深入到处理器芯片级别，提高整个数据中心的能效和利用率，对未来十年的国家能源消耗产生重大影响。然而，缺乏大规模的集成方法、设计方法和统一的跨层设计，阻碍了这些系统的实现。本项目中提出的电子-光子设计和系统设计方法的影响不仅包括通信系统，还包括各种其他复杂的电子-光子系统(如检测、传感和仪器)。这项多学科的工作将培养一批跨越电子和光子系统界限的独特的工程师和科学家。该研究项目的目标是利用最近发展的大规模电子-光子集成方法来设计短距离相干调制光子链路，从而显著提高面积、能量和频谱效率。所提出的用于相干高阶调制发送器和接收器的电子-光子电路拓扑利用了每个域的优点，并纠正了另一个域中的非理想情况。从建模和仿真基础设施出发，提出了一种独特的Verilog-A仿真建模框架，该框架允许在大信号、非线性、时变的条件下对光子和电子电路进行真正的联合仿真。这一能力使人们对电子电路和光子电路的相互作用有了重要的了解。它对于使用谐振元件作为设计高效电子-光子通信系统的第二个关键成分至关重要。虽然能量和面积效率很高，但谐振组件需要复杂的波长稳定环路和电子驱动来补偿其传递函数特性，这是通过联合仿真方法和所提出的集成方法中大量的高性能晶体管实现的。

Our society is on the cusp of a new revolution in integrated circuit technology and manufacturing. The new technology will successfully combine electronic and photonic systems creating previously unimagined functionality and performance. Such sophisticated electronic-photonic systems-on-chip with highly-efficient use of area, energy and spectral resources are critically needed in many communication scenarios. For example, current data-centers and high-performance supercomputers are both power-constrained. High-bandwidth density and high-energy efficiency photonic interconnects would allow the connectivity down to the processor chip level increasing the power-efficiency and utilization of the whole data-center, significantly impacting the national energy consumption in the next decade. However, the lack of large-scale integration approach, design methodology and unified cross-layer design has prevented the realization of these systems. The impact of the electronic-photonic designs and system design methodology proposed in this project spans not only communication systems, but also a variety of other sophisticated electronic-photonic systems (e.g. detection, sensing, and instrumentation). The multi-disciplinary work will educate a unique crop of engineers and scientists that cross the boundaries of electronic and photonic systems. The objective of the research project is to utilize recently developed large-scale electronic-photonic integration approaches to design short-reach coherent-modulation photonic links that significantly improve the area, energy and spectral-efficiency. The proposed electronic-photonic circuit topologies for coherent high-order modulation transmitters and receivers leverage the advantages of each domain and correct for the non-idealities in the other. Starting from the modeling and simulation infrastructure, the proposed research comprises a unique simulation and modeling framework in Verilog-A, which allows for true co-simulation of photonic and electronic circuits, under large signal, non-linear, time-varying conditions. This capability gives vital insights into the interaction of electronic and photonic circuits. It is essential for the use of the resonant components as the second key ingredient in designing efficient electronic-photonic communication systems. Although energy and area efficient, the resonant components require sophisticated wavelength stabilization loops and electronic drive to compensate for their transfer-function characteristics, which are enabled by the co-simulation methodology and abundance of high-performance transistors in the proposed integration approaches.