| Silicon Microphotonics: Hardware for the Information Age |
| Lionel C. Kimerling,
MIT The progress of civilization is traditionally measured in terms of Materials
Ages. In each Age, new materials technologies have enhanced the quality
of life from stone (shelter) to iron (tools). Silicon is most certainly
the material that has enabled the Information Age. I will review the gating
role of materials and materials processing in the evolution of the Information
Age sectors of communication, computation, imaging and learning. The information
capacity metric of 10Mb/s x km has defined the threshold for the introduction
of photonic signal transmission and processing. For the projected high
manufacturing volume applications beyond 2010, there is no perceived solution
other than silicon-based technologies. This presentation will describe
best-practice examples of the physical concepts, materials and process
integration issues and performance limits for the monolithic integration
of lasers, waveguides, photodetectors and modulators with silicon CMOS
electronics. |