Scalable 3D Silicon Photonic Electronic Integrated Circuits and Their Applications
Yu Zhang, Anirban Samanta, Kuanping Shang, S. J. Ben Yoo
Abstract
This paper investigates the opportunity and challenges of 3D silicon photonic electronic integrated circuits (3D EPICs) scaling to wafer-scale and beyond. The continuing demand for more data and information is driving new computing, communications, imaging, and information processing at higher throughput and energy-efficiency at lower manufacturing cost. The newly developed 3D silicon photonic devices including vertical U-turns and vertical lightpipes enable through-silicon-optical-vias (TSOVs) that can interconnect multiple layers of 2D silicon photonic electronic integrated circuits consistently with the industry's through-silicon-via (TSV) based 3D electronic integrated circuit manufacturing. Heterogeneous integration technology based on transfer printing allows wafer-scale (or beyond wafer-scale) heterogeneous integration of dissimilar materials (e.g., III-V semiconductor layers) on silicon at room temperature and 3D ultrafast laser inscription technologies allow arbitrary optical interfaces for high-density input/output between the 3D EPICs and many strands of multi-core-fibers (MCFs). We will discuss applications in neuromorphic computing, 3D LiDAR, photonic-integrated-interferometric-telescopes, 3D-fine-grain-memory, and 3D processor-memory realized by large-scale 3D EPICs.