Propelling breakthrough embedded microprocessors by means of integrated photonics

The tutorial aims to address electrical communications link limitations by developing chipscale, integrated photonic technology to enable seamless intrachip and off-chip photonic communications that provide the required bandwidth with low energy/bit. The emerging technology will exploit wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), allowing much higher bandwidth capacity per link, which is imperative to meeting the communication needs of future microprocessors. Such a capability would propel the microprocessor onto a new performance trajectory and impact the actual runtime performance of relevant computing tasks for power-starved embedded applications and supercomputing. The challenges in realizing optical interconnect technology are developing CMOS and DRAM-compatible photonic links that are spectrally broad, operate at high bit-rates with very low power dissipation, and are tightly integrated with electronic drivers. Ultimately, the goal of this tutorial is to demonstrate photonic technologies that can be integrated within embedded microprocessors and enable seamless, energy-efficient, high-capacity communications within and between the microprocessor and DRAM. It is envisioned that optical interconnect technology will be especially useful for those platforms where extreme performance coupled with low size, weight, and power is a necessity (e.g. UAVs, and satellites).