IRT Nanoelec Integrates III-V Laser On Silicon
Nanoelec Research Technological Institute (IRT) in Grenoble, France - an R&D consortium headed by CEA-Leti - has announced the first co-integration of a III-V/silicon laser and silicon Mach-Zehnder modulator demonstrating 25Gbps transmission on a single channel. This transmission rate usually is achieved using an external source, over a 10km single-mode fibre (SMF).
"Jointly obtained by STMicroelectronics and Leti in the frame of the IRT Nanoelec cooperation, these results - especially fabricating the laser directly on silicon - demonstrate IRT Nanoelec's worldwide leadership in III/V-on-silicon integration to achieve high-data-rate fiber-optic modules," says project manager Stéphane Bernabé.
"IRT Nanoelec and its partners on this project - Leti, STMicroelectronics, Samtec and Mentor Graphics - are paving the way to integrating this technology in next-generation transceivers for optical data links," he adds.
To achieve the recent results, silicon photonics circuits integrating the modulator were processed first on a 200mm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer, although 300 mm wafers also could be used in the near future. Then, a two inch wafer of III-V material was directly bonded on the wafer. In the third step, the hybrid wafer was processed using conventional semiconductor and/or MEMS process steps to produce an integrated modulator-and-laser transmitter.
