SiFotonics announces world's first commercial integrated optical receiver

OFC/NFOEC 2010, WOBURN, USA: SiFotonics Technologies Co. Ltd., a leading supplier of optical communications components based on the Silicon Photonics technology platform, announced that the TP1001, an integrated receiver for 2.5Gb/s optical communication applications is available for volume production.

The TP1001 receiver consists of a strained Germanium detector monolithically integrated with a trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) fabricated on an 8-inch Silicon wafer. The fabrication was successfully conducted at two of the leading global semiconductor foundries.

Dr. Dong Pan, CEO of SiFotonics, said: “In the past, the industry relied on a two-chip solution to produce an optical receiver: one GaAs or InP based photodetector and one trans-impedance amplifier. At SiFotonics, we have overcome numerous technical challenges to integrate these two functions onto a single silicon chip that can be fabricated in commercially available foundries. We are thrilled to announce that our TP1001, an integrated 2.5Gb/s receiver, has passed all functional and reliability tests.

“To our knowledge, this is the world’s first commercial grade monolithically integrated optical receiver chip using CMOS technology. This exciting development came as a result of implementing many years of cutting edge research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the world’s leading research institutions in the field of Silicon Photonics. We expect to bring a 10Gb/s version to the market using the same technologies and processes in a very short period of time.”

“The monolithic receiver is a great achievement. It shows both technical excellence and outstanding process and design coordination,” said Dr. Lionel C. Kimerling, Thomas Lord Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“The TP1001 opens a new page in our industry not only for telecommunication applications but also for data communications as we are able to integrate additional application specific logic with TP1001 by using the same CMOS process,” added Jack Yuan, VP of Sales and Marketing of SiFotonicsTM. “In addition, the TP1001 at 2.5Gb/s brings light speed communication capability at very low cost to enable the penetration of optical links into cost sensitive applications, such as data communications and consumer electronics.”

TP1001 is a Germanium on Silicon based 2.5Gb/s Photo Detector integrated with a CMOS TIA. The TP1001 is designed to be used in front of a fiber input and operates by receiving the optical signal and converting it to an electrical signal, responding to four key optical wavelengths: 650nm, 850nm, 1310nm, and 1550nm.

Fabricated in the standard CMOS process with a +3.3V power supply, the TP1001 offers typical -25dBm sensitivity and responsivity of 0.9 A/W. The on-chip TIA offers a differential gain of 300K ohms, and the whole chip typically runs under 132mW. The TP1001 is available now for sampling and will enter mass production in June 2010.