Silicon Photonics

Silicon Photonics

by Daryl Inniss, Roy Rubenstein
Released December 2016
Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
ISBN: 9780128029923

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

Silicon photonics uses chip-making techniques to fabricate photonic circuits. The emerging technology is coming to market at a time of momentous change. The need of the Internet content providers to keep scaling their data centers is becoming increasing challenging, the chip industry is facing a future without Moore’s law, while telcos must contend with a looming capacity crunch due to continual traffic growth.

Each of these developments is significant in its own right. Collectively, they require new thinking in the design of chips, optical components, and systems. Such change also signals new business opportunities and disruption.

Notwithstanding challenges, silicon photonics’ emergence is timely because it is the future of several industries. For the optical industry, the technology will allow designs to be tackled in new ways. For the chip industry, silicon photonics will become the way of scaling post-Moore’s law. New system architectures enabled by silicon photonics will improve large-scale computing and optical communications.

Silicon Photonics: Fueling the Next Information Revolution outlines the history and status of silicon photonics. The book discusses the trends driving the datacom and telecom industries, the main but not the only markets for silicon photonics. In particular, developments in optical transport and the data center are discussed as are the challenges. The book details the many roles silicon photonics will play, from wide area networks down to the chip level. Silicon photonics is set to change the optical components and chip industries; this book explains how.

  • Captures the latest research assessing silicon photonics development and prospects
  • Demonstrates how silicon photonics addresses the challenges of managing bandwidth over distance and within systems
  • Explores potential applications of SiP, including servers, datacenters, and Internet of Things

Table of contents

  1. Cover image
  2. Title page
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Preface
    1. The Reasoning for the Book and Its Organization
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Chapter 1. Silicon Photonics: Disruptive and Ready for Prime Time
    1. Abstract
    2. 1.1 Introduction
    3. 1.2 Silicon Photonics: An Introduction
    4. 1.3 The Significance of Silicon Photonics
    5. 1.4 The Status of Silicon Photonics
    6. 1.5 Silicon Photonics: Market Opportunities and Industry Disruption
    7. References
  9. Chapter 2. Layers and the Evolution of Communications Networks
    1. Abstract
    2. 2.1 Introduction
    3. 2.2 The Concept of Layering
    4. 2.3 The Telecom Network—Layer 4
    5. 2.4 The Data Center—Layer 3
    6. 2.5 Platforms—Layer 2
    7. 2.6 The Silicon Chip—Layer 1
    8. 2.7 Telecom and Datacom Industry Challenges
    9. 2.8 Silicon Photonics: Why the Technology Is Important for All the Layers
    10. References
  10. Chapter 3. The Long March to a Silicon-Photonics Union
    1. Abstract
    2. 3.1 Moore’s Law and 50 Years of the Chip Industry
    3. 3.2 How Photonics Can Benefit Semiconductors
    4. 3.3 Silicon Photonics: From Building Blocks to Superchips
    5. 3.4 The Building Blocks of Silicon Photonics Integrated Circuits
    6. References
  11. Chapter 4. The Route to Market for Silicon Photonics
    1. Abstract
    2. 4.1 The Technology Adoption Curve
    3. 4.2 A Brief History of Silicon Photonics
    4. 4.3 Four Commercial Silicon Photonics Product Case Studies
    5. 4.4 What Silicon Photonics Needs to Go Mainstream
    6. 4.5 100-Gb Market Revenues Are Insufficient for Silicon Photonics
    7. 4.6 The Silicon Photonics Ecosystem: A State-of-the-Industry Report
    8. References
  12. Chapter 5. Metro and Long-Haul Network Growth Demands Exponential Progress
    1. Abstract
    2. 5.1 The Changing Nature of Telecom
    3. 5.2 Internet Businesses Have the Fastest Network Traffic Growth
    4. 5.3 The Market Should Expect Cost-per-Transmitted-Bit to Rise
    5. 5.4 Data Center Interconnect Equipment
    6. 5.5 The Role of Silicon Photonics for Data Center Interconnect
    7. 5.6 Tackling Continual Traffic Growth
    8. 5.7 Pulling It All Together
    9. References
  13. Chapter 6. The Data Center: A Central Cog in the Digital Economy
    1. Abstract
    2. 6.1 Internet Content Providers Are Driving the New Economy
    3. 6.2 Cloud Computing: Another Growth Market
    4. 6.3 The Expansive Build-Out of Data Centers
    5. 6.4 Energy Consumption Poses the Greatest Data Center Challenge
    6. 6.5 Silicon Photonics Can Address Data Center Challenges
    7. References
  14. Chapter 7. Data Center Architectures and Opportunities for Silicon Photonics
    1. Abstract
    2. 7.1 Introduction
    3. 7.2 Internet Content Providers Are the New Drivers of Photonics
    4. 7.3 Data Center Networking Architectures and Their Limitations
    5. 7.4 Embedding Optics to Benefit Systems
    6. 7.5 Data Center Input–Output Challenges
    7. 7.6 Adding Photonics to Ultralarge-Scale Chips
    8. 7.7 Pulling It All Together
    9. References
  15. Chapter 8. The Likely Course of Silicon Photonics
    1. Abstract
    2. 8.1 Looking Back to See Ahead
    3. 8.2 The Market Opportunities for Silicon Photonics: The Present to 2026
    4. 8.3 The Great Cultural Divide
    5. 8.4 The Chip Industry Will Own Photonics
    6. References
  16. Appendix 1. Optical Communications Primer
    1. A1.1 Optical Links
    2. A1.2 Optical Component Technologies
    3. A1.3 Attenuation Characteristics of Fiber
    4. A1.4 Optical Modules
  17. Appendix 2. Optical Transmission Techniques for Layer 4 Networks
    1. A2.1 The Three Classes of Optical Channel
    2. A2.2 Single-Carrier 100-Gb Transmission With Coherent Detection
    3. A2.3 Improving Spectral Efficiency
    4. A2.4 Higher-Order Modulation
    5. A2.5 The Levers Used to Boost Transmission Capacity
  18. Index

Product information

  • Title: Silicon Photonics
  • Author(s): Daryl Inniss, Roy Rubenstein
  • Release date: December 2016
  • Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
  • ISBN: 9780128029923