Contents 1. Introduction
As data networks scale to meet increasing bandwidth requirements, the shortcomings of copper data channels are rapidly manifesting themselves in the form of signal dispersion, attenuation, crosstalk and limited reach. While all of these can be mitigated to some extent using equalization, coding, and shielding, these techniques carry considerable power, complexity, and cable bulk penalties while offering only modest improvements in reach and no path to scalability. Given its advantages with respect to such channel limitations, optical communication has been recognized as the natural successor to copper links. However, traditionally, optical transceivers have relied on exotic materials, technologies and processes, limiting their deployment outside of the realm of long-haul systems. This paper presents a transceiver developed using a silicon photonics technology platform that allows optoelectronic devices manufactured in a commercial CMOS process to reside in the same active silicon alongside analog, digital, and mixed-signal circuits [1]–[3]. Such a platform has the potential to deliver economic, scalable, high speed optical connectivity across a range of applications. The single chip, single laser, 4×10-Gb/s transceiver presented in this paper is on the verge of becoming the first commercial application of such technology.
