1.6 Tbps Silicon Photonics Integrated Circuit and 800 Gbps Photonic Engine for Switch Co-Packaging Demonstration

Abstract

We describe the performance of high bandwidth-density Silicon Photonic based Integrated Circuits (SiPh ICs) that enabled the first fully functional Photonic Engine (PE) module co-packaged with an Ethernet switch. We demonstrate the 1.6 Tbps SiPh transmitter (Tx) IC that integrates on-die all the lasers, micro ring modulators, monitor photodetectors, spot size converters and V-grooves that are needed to support sixteen 106.25 Gbps PAM4 optical transmit channels. This SiPh Tx, together with discrete receiver (Rx) SiPh ICs, enabled an 800Gbps PE. The PE is designed to allow up to sixteen modules to be co-packaged around a high-bandwidth switch ASIC. The PE test results described in this paper were obtained using sixteen 53.125 Gbps electrical channels that were multiplexed to drive eight simultaneously operating 106.25 Gbps optical channels. We report DR4 IEEE standards compliant high-speed optical eye performance as well as full link operation. Post-FEC error-free operation over temperature and over extended time duration is demonstrated on all channels.