An integrated silicon light source still remains the Holy Grail for integrated optical communication systems. Hot carrier luminescent light sources provide a way to create light in a standard CMOS process, potentially enabling cost effective optical communication between CMOS integrated circuits. In this paper we present a 1 Mb/s integrated silicon optical link for information transfer, targeting a real-world integrated solution by connecting two PCs via a USB port while transferring data optically between the devices. This realization represents the first optical communication product prototype utilizing a CMOS light emitter. The silicon light sources which are implemented in a standard 0.35 μm CMOS technology are electrically modulated and detected using a commercial silicon avalanche photodiode. Data rates exceeding 10 Mb/s using silicon light sources have previously been demonstrated using raw bit streams. In this work data is sent in two half duplex streams accompanied with the separate transmission of a clock. Such an optical communication system could find application in high noise environments where data fidelity, range and cost are a determining factor.

Date Published: 27 February 2013
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8630, Optoelectronic Interconnects XIII, 86300K (27 February 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2004819

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8630:
Optoelectronic Interconnects XIII
Alexei L. Glebov; Ray T. Chen, Editor(s)