A Monolithic Integrated On-Chip Optical Interconnect Bus Based on Electrically Switchable Bragg Gratings in Polymer Waveguides

"Crystal Research, Inc. proposes a monolithic integrated optoelectronic chip module concept to optically interconnect chip-level VLSI circuits. Realizing the fact that integration of photonics devices on-chip avoids many of bottlenecks associated withcurrent system architectures, we propose to develop an on-chip optical waveguide interconnect technology for data transmission at rates exceeding 10 gigabits per second.The proposed architecture employs advanced polymer waveguide circuits and innovative electro-optic switchable gratings. Similar to electrical interconnection buses, where control and data signals can be relayed between senders (for example, processors)and receivers (for example, memories), an optical bus based on polymer waveguides is proposed for the first time to provide the optical equivalent of an electronic bus line driver. The bus architecture proposed herein represents one of the majormilestones for the realization of on-chip optical bus. Furthermore, broadcasting of high-speed clock signals can be easily achieved through electro-optic waveguide fanout gratings.Crystal Research, Inc. will deliver a preliminary prototype device to the funding agency by the end of Phase I for proof of concept demonstration. Current high performance electronics are limited by interconnects rather than the processor speed. The proposed optical interconnect technology will provide a better alternative to release such a bottleneck.