Patent Application
20220011408
For complex silicon photonic (SiP) integrated circuits (ICs), many power monitors may be present for control and optimization of various functionalities of the IC. For example, in a simple four-channel transmitter, a minimum of eight power monitor photodetectors (MPDs) are used to set and control the bias point of the optical modulators. In some SiP-ICs, MPD's are made of III-V compound semiconductor devices such as Indium Phosphide (InP) photodetectors or Germanium (Ge)-based photodetectors. However, these MPDs increase the area, manufacturing complexity, and cost due to the requirement for III-V or Ge material.
In addition, additional structures such as taps are used to tap optical power from a waveguide and provide it to these MPD's, which can adversely affect performance since tap ratio variabilities limit the accuracy of power measurements. InP and Ge-based detectors require heterogenous integration on silicon, resulting in higher material and process costs, which is exacerbated by waveguide routing that consumes additional chip area. Two photon absorption (TPA)-based p-i-n waveguide power monitors can be used as in-line power monitors and overcome some of the problems with InP or Ge-based MPD's, however, their responsivity is low and nonlinear, limiting dynamic range and usability.
In various embodiments, a silicon PN junction waveguide-based photodetector (SiPD) may be provided for use in high speed optical interconnect applications. Such SiPDs can be used as a low-cost alternative to III-V or Ge-based photodetectors, and may be adapted on an integrated silicon photonic IC for use as an in-line MPD. By optimizing the doping in the PN junction of the SiPD's and forming the SiPD's having optimized lengths, these devices may be made to be partially absorptive to enable use as in-line MPD's. Stated another way, the PN junction forms an MPD that is in-line with the waveguide itself. This in-line SiPD acts to convert a relatively small portion of the photons (e.g., 5%) propagating through the waveguide into electrons, from which optical power may be measured. In this way, embodiments may eliminate power taps associated with III-V or Ge MPD's, as these detectors absorb nearly 100% of the light, preventing in-line use. In addition, embodiments may realize higher and linear responsivity/response in comparison to TPA-based silicon photodetectors. As a result, smaller, more reliable power monitoring mechanisms are provided, as compared to more expensive, less accurate power tap-based mechanisms. This is so, as an in-line power monitor may be realized from appropriate sizing (e.g., length and width) and doping of a PN junction of a waveguide.
With embodiments in which SiPDs are fabricated as silicon devices without III-V or Ge materials, more compact devices may be realized, and fabrication may be at a lower cost. In different implementations, the SiPDs can be tailored to specific applications/requirements, leading to lower manufacturing cost and improved device performance, especially for more complex silicon photonic IC's.
Referring now to
As shown, a waveguide 110 is implemented as a so-called rib structure and is formed of a PN junction having a P region 112 and an N region 114. Waveguide 110 may be configured to propagate optical power, e.g., as generated by a given light source such as a laser, light emitting diode (LED) or so forth. Waveguide 110 may be implemented in various locations in a photonic IC. For example, a waveguide may be used to couple different components of the photonic IC, such as a light source and a functional circuit. Although embodiments are not limited in this regard, in a particular example the functional circuit may be a modulator that receives and modulates the optical power. A waveguide also may be adapted at an output of a functional circuit (such as a modulator) and/or on a path between other components.
In any event, to enable in-line optical power monitoring without the need for taps or other couplers that extract or pull off some amount of the optical power, embodiments provide an integrated photodetector. In the embodiment of
Understand that while an SiPD may have a given length that may vary based on particular design characteristics, in some embodiments an SiPD may have a length of between approximately 50 and 1000 microns.
Also while implementations may vary, the overall structure of the cross-sectional view in
In operation an SiPD may be controlled by a given controller (such as a control circuit of the photonic IC) to be reversed-biased. In some implementations, a reverse bias voltage of approximately −5.0 to −6.0 volts may be applied.
Understand while shown with this particular configuration for use with the waveguide structure in
Referring now to
For a given photonic IC, there may be many locations at which monitoring optical power is desired. Accordingly, SiPDs in accordance with an embodiment can be provided at many different locations within a photonic IC. For example as described above, it may be desirable to measure optical power output by a laser or other light source. In addition it may be desirable to measure optical power at inputs and/or outputs of other components of a photonic IC. As such, a photonic IC can be provided with many SiPDs as described herein that may enable in-line measurement of optical power at many different locations.
Referring now to
To monitor optical power, a plurality of SiPDs 3301,2 are present, respectively at an input of functional circuit 320 and an output of functional circuit 320. Each SiPD 330 is thus directly adjacent to and in-line with a corresponding waveguide, and includes in this top view corresponding ohmic contacts 332 and 334, adapted at opposing sides of waveguides 315, 325. These ohmic contacts may in turn couple to on-chip metal traces that in turn couple to corresponding pads of photonic IC 300 to which bond wires may be connected. Understand while shown at this high level in the embodiment of
For example in other cases, the laser or other light source may be implemented off-chip and coupled to photonic IC 300 via a fiber optic cable. In some cases, PIC 300 may be a LIDAR sensor or part of a photonic communication system in which optical communications occur via an on-chip transceiver. In turn, an optical fiber may couple multiple PICs to enable high speed optical communication, e.g., within a data center architecture. As examples, a PIC may include multiple transmitters and/or receivers. For example, a PIC may include a 16 or 32-channel transceiver, and can include multiple SiPDs in accordance with embodiment to act as monitor photodetectors (MPDs) for these communication channels. In another use case, a LIDAR sensor may be implemented with as a PIC having a co-packaged photonics engine and a LIDAR device.
Referring now to
With a III-V photodetector implementing a power tap to couple a portion of light out of a waveguide, significant measurement uncertainty may occur due to fabrication variations of the taps and the waveguide transitions that route light to the III-V region having the photodetector. Instead with embodiments, a SiPD absorbs a portion of light that is comparable to the light coupled to the power tap. For example, tapping off 6.0% of light from the main waveguide is equivalent to 0.3 dB of loss in the main waveguide. In addition, there may be about 0.1 dB of scattering loss in the tap coupler due to fabrication imperfection.
Instead with an embodiment, a SiPD having a length of approximately 50 μm long may have an equivalent loss of 0.4 dB or lower. The extrapolated responsivity for a 50 μm-long SiPD is 0.05 A/W, which is equivalent to a III-V PD with a 6.0% tap and is sufficient for power monitoring purposes. Assuming typical responsivity of 0.8 A/W for an InP PD, 1 milliampere (mA) of optical power in the main waveguide will generate photo-current of 48 microamperes (uA) (1 mW×6%×0.8 A/W) in the III-V PD, and 50 uA (1 mW×0.05 A/W) in the in-line SiPD.
Embodiments may be incorporated into many different system types. Referring now to
As illustrated, system 500 includes a processor 510, which may be a general-purpose multicore processor or other system on chip (SoC). In different implementations, multiple such processors may be implemented to flexibly allocate autonomous driving workloads across these processors. Processor 510 receives power that is controlled by a power management integrated circuit (PMIC) 540.
System 500 may further include one or more field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) 515 or other programmable accelerators to which certain autonomous driving workloads may be offloaded. Processor 510 further couples to a non-volatile memory 525, which in an embodiment may be implemented as a flash memory. To provide communication with other components within a vehicle, processor 510 further couples to a switch fabric 520 which in an embodiment may be implemented as an Ethernet switch fabric that in turn may couple to other components within a vehicle, including display components, vehicle infotainment systems, and so forth.
Still further, processor 510 (and switch fabric 520) also couple to a microcontroller (MCU) 550 which may be involved in functional safety testing. Furthermore, to enable interaction with other systems, including other vehicles, roadway systems, over-the-air update sources, infotainment content sources, sensor data communication and so forth, processor 510 and MCU 550 may couple to one or more radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) 560.
In embodiments, RFIC 560 may be configured to support 5G-based specifications for communication of automotive and other data via a variety of wireless networks. To this end, RFIC 560 may couple to one or more antennas 5700-570n of a vehicle.
As further illustrated in
In some cases, system 500 may include a rotating LIDAR sensor to monitor an entire vicinity. In other cases, there may be multiple LIDAR sensors, each fixed to monitor a given direction and field of view. These LIDAR sensors may provide image feedback information to processor 510, which may determine a location (e.g., range, and potentially speed) of an object based at least in part on the image feedback information.
Additional sensors may include ultrasound, radar and optical sensors, among other sensor types. Sensor hub 535 may be configured to fuse at least some of this data to provide information regarding the vehicle's surroundings including object detection, range and speed information, for provision to processor 510. In turn, processor 510 and/or FPGA 515 may use this fused sensor information in connection with performing autonomous driving workloads. Understand while shown at this high level in the embodiment of
Embodiments may be used in other systems, such as in connection with optical transceivers that couple together via optical fibers, such as may be present in a datacenter environment. Referring now to
To enable coherent accelerator devices and/or smart adapter devices to couple to CPUs 610 by way of potentially multiple communication protocols, a plurality of interconnects 630a1-b2 may be present. In an embodiment, each interconnect 630 may be a given instance of a Compute Express Link (CXL) interconnect.
In the embodiment shown, respective CPUs 610 couple to corresponding FPGAs/accelerator devices 650a,b (which may include graphics processing units (GPUs), in one embodiment. In addition CPUs 610 also couple to smart network interface circuit (NIC) devices 660a,b. In turn, smart NIC devices 660a,b couple to switches 680a,b that in turn couple to a pooled memory 690a,b such as a persistent memory. Note that any of the interconnects shown may be implemented as optical fibers that couple to optical transceivers incorporating embodiments.
The following examples pertain to further embodiments.
In one example, an apparatus includes: a waveguide formed of a PN junction, the waveguide to propagate optical power, the PN junction having a P region adjacent to an N region; and a silicon monitor photodetector formed of the PN junction and in-line with the waveguide to measure the optical power, the silicon monitor photodetector further formed of a P-doped region adjacent to the P region and an N-doped region adjacent to the N region.
In an example, the silicon monitor photodetector further comprises a first ohmic contact coupled to the P-doped region and a second ohmic contact coupled to the N-doped region.
In an example, the silicon monitor photodetector has a length of less than approximately 1000 microns.
In an example, the waveguide is coupled between a laser and a modulator, the silicon monitor photodetector comprising an in-line power monitor to measure the optical power at an input of the modulator.
In an example, the silicon monitor photodetector is to provide a linear response to the optical power, the silicon monitor photodetector directly adjacent to the waveguide without interposition of a tap.
In an example, the laser, the modulator, the waveguide and the silicon monitor photodetector are formed on a semiconductor die.
In an example, the apparatus further comprises a first conductive trace to couple the first ohmic contact to a first pad of the semiconductor die and a second conductive trace to couple the second ohmic contact to a second pad of the semiconductor die.
In an example, at least one of the N-doped region and the P-doped region has a dopant concentration of between approximately 1×1019 to 1×1020 per cubic centimeter, the N-doped region and the P-doped region comprising highly doped regions and the N region and the P region comprising lightly doped regions.
In an example, the waveguide comprises a rib structure formed of the PN junction.
In an example, in the rib structure, the N region at least partially covers the P region.
In an example, the apparatus further comprises a control circuit to provide a reverse bias voltage to the silicon monitor photodetector.
In another example, a method comprises: propagating optical power through a waveguide formed of a PN junction having a P region adjacent to an N region, the waveguide formed on a PIC; and measuring the optical power using a silicon monitor photodetector formed of the PN junction and in-line with the waveguide, the silicon monitor photodetector further comprising a P-doped region adjacent to the P region and an N-doped region adjacent to the N region.
In an example, the method further comprises sending a photocurrent detected by the silicon monitor photodetector to a circuit via a first ohmic contact coupled to the P-doped region and a second ohmic contact coupled to the N-doped region.
In an example, the method further comprises: generating the optical power in a laser; measuring the optical power using the silicon monitor photodetector in-line with the waveguide adapted on a path between the laser and a functional circuit; and measuring second optical power using a second silicon monitor photodetector in-line with a second waveguide, the second silicon monitor photodetector formed of a second PN region, the second waveguide coupled to an output of the functional circuit.
In an example, the method further comprises measuring the second optical power of a modulated optical signal output by the functional circuit, the functional circuit comprising a modulator.
In a further example, a computer readable medium including data is to be used by at least one machine to fabricate at least one integrated circuit to perform the method of any one of the above examples.
In a still further example, an apparatus comprises means for performing the method of any one of the above examples.
In another example, a system comprises a PIC having: a first waveguide formed of a PN junction, the first waveguide to propagate first optical power, the PN junction having a P region adjacent to an N region; and a first silicon monitor photodetector formed of the PN junction and in-line with the first waveguide to measure the first optical power, the first silicon monitor photodetector further comprising a P-doped region adjacent to the P region and an N-doped region adjacent to the N region; a modulator coupled to the first waveguide, the modulator to modulate the first optical power with a modulated signal to output a modulated optical signal; a second waveguide to communicate the modulated optical signal; and a second silicon monitor photodetector in-line with the second waveguide to measure second optical power of the modulated optical signal. The system may further include a transceiver coupled to the second waveguide to output the modulated optical signal.
In an example, the first waveguide comprises a rib structure formed of the PN junction.
In an example, the system further comprises a control circuit to provide a reverse bias voltage to the first silicon monitor photodetector, the first silicon monitor photodetector having a linear response to a power level of the first optical power.
In an example, the system comprises a photonic communication system further comprising an optical fiber coupled between the photonic integrated circuit and a second photonic integrated circuit.
In an example, the system comprises a LIDAR sensor.
Understand that various combinations of the above examples are possible.
Note that the terms “circuit” and “circuitry” are used interchangeably herein. As used herein, these terms and the term “logic” are used to refer to alone or in any combination, analog circuitry, digital circuitry, hard wired circuitry, programmable circuitry, processor circuitry, microcontroller circuitry, hardware logic circuitry, state machine circuitry and/or any other type of physical hardware component. Embodiments may be used in many different types of systems. For example, in one embodiment a communication device can be arranged to perform the various methods and techniques described herein. Of course, the scope of the present invention is not limited to a communication device, and instead other embodiments can be directed to other types of apparatus for processing instructions, or one or more machine readable media including instructions that in response to being executed on a computing device, cause the device to carry out one or more of the methods and techniques described herein.
Embodiments may be implemented in code and may be stored on a non-transitory storage medium having stored thereon instructions which can be used to program a system to perform the instructions. Embodiments also may be implemented in data and may be stored on a non-transitory storage medium, which if used by at least one machine, causes the at least one machine to fabricate at least one integrated circuit to perform one or more operations. Still further embodiments may be implemented in a computer readable storage medium including information that, when manufactured into a SoC or other processor, is to configure the SoC or other processor to perform one or more operations. The storage medium may include, but is not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, solid state drives (SSDs), compact disk read-only memories (CD-ROMs), compact disk rewritables (CD-RWs), and magneto-optical disks, semiconductor devices such as read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs) such as dynamic random access memories (DRAMs), static random access memories (SRAMs), erasable programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), flash memories, electrically erasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs), magnetic or optical cards, or any other type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions.
While the present disclosure has been described with respect to a limited number of implementations, those skilled in the art, having the benefit of this disclosure, will appreciate numerous modifications and variations therefrom. It is intended that the appended claims cover all such modifications and variations.
