Intel Unveils Technology Advancements in Silicon Photonics

Intel announced that its researchers managed to achieve new world record performance in optical communications in the field of Silicon Photonics through the use of a silicon-based Avalanche Photodetector (APD). According to the company, the APD is also able to help reduce costs compared to commercially available optical devices. Intel unveiled the development in the journal Nature Photonics.

The emerging technology known as Silicon Photonics uses standard silicon as means of sending and receiving optical information among computers and other electronic devices. The new technology is expected to be able to address bandwidth needs of data-intensive computing applications including medicine and lifelike 3-D virtual worlds.

Future computers will probably be powered by many processor cores, and they will rely on ultra-fast data transfer rates. Silicon Photonics-based technology is said to be able to deliver higher-speed mainstream computing, while also lowering costs. Intel has developed the technology starting from previous breakthroughs like fast silicon modulators and hybrid silicon lasers. It seems that these technologies could be combined so as to allow for the development of much faster machines than those currently available.

The APD developed by the team is a light sensor able to achieve superior sensitivity through the detection of light and amplification of weak signals as light is directed onto silicon. A silicon and CMOS processing were used by the device to achieve bandwidth of 340 GHz, a world record for this APD performance metric. The achievement proves that a silicon photonics device is able to provide more performance than one made of traditional materials, while also reducing costs.

“This research result is another example of how silicon can be used to create very high-performing optical devices,” said Mario Paniccia, Ph.D., Intel Fellow and director of the company’s Photonics Technology Lab. “In addition to optical communication, these silicon-based APDs could also be applied to other areas such as sensing, imaging, quantum cryptography or biological applications.”

The team also included researchers from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Numonyx, a maker of memory technologies, which provided manufacturing and process development. “This achievement is a good example of the effective collaboration between Intel and Numonyx,” said Yonathan Wand, Numonyx manufacturing vice president and Fab1 plant manager. “We are committed to enhancing this collaboration, to enable further research breakthroughs in the Silicon Photonics area.”

The development was assisted by Prof. Joe Campbell from the University of Virginia and Prof. John Bowers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, both APD experts. “This APD utilizes the inherently superior characteristics of silicon for high-speed amplification to create world-class optical technology,” Bowers said. “We were glad to help characterize these devices and will continue to work with Intel to realize the full potential of silicon photonics devices.”