High-Speed Photonics for Side-by-Side Integration With Billion Transistor Circuits in Unmodified CMOS Processes

The performance of modern computer systems is limited by the input/output bottleneck problem. Key figures such as bandwidth density, energy efficiency, and reach are compared with state-of-the-art solutions. The latest photonic device library for computercom in the 45 nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) node is reviewed. It is shown that monolithic integration of photonics and electronics in advanced CMOS nodes offers orders-of-magnitude better figures than standard wirelines and silicon photonic devices for datacom.