Breakthrough In High Speed Data Transmission Using Silicon Photonics

An APD Chip

Santa Clara, California-based Intel Corporation has announced a breakthrough in silicon photonic technology that promise data transmission speeds of 30Gbps and more.

Digital machines of the future will likely be built with fast silicon modulators and hybrid silicon lasers that will make such speeds possible. Called the Avalanche Photodetector (APD), the device is a light sensor that detects light and amplifies weak signals. Silicon on its own cannot generate laser-quality light, but it can manipulate it in ways desirable for onward transmission. It is this property that researchers have leveraged to achieve a “gain-bandwidth product” of 340Ghz, which is considered to be the best result that has ever been achieved for this particular performance metric.

Besides pumping data at incredible speeds, APDs are expected to prove useful in other domains such as sensing, imaging, quantum cryptography and biological applications. The technology is especially attractive because of its low cost of fabrication in comparison to devices made of more exotic material such as indium phosphide.

The breakthrough is an outcome of joint research conducted between Intel, Switzerland-based Numonyx B.V., and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

Read more about the breakthrough research here.