The future communication systems are demanding more and more bandwidth in order to transmit high
quantity of digital data in a very short timeframe and by maintaining high reliability on the
recovered data. This trend has resulted both in the improvement of purely electronic interfaces
based on copper interconnects up to 25Gbps (USB3, Ethernet, PCI-express, SATA), and in the
development of integrated optical and electronic systems to be used also in consumer applications
(USB4).
One of the most promising evolutions of integrated optical and electronic systems consists in the
on-chip integration of electro-optical functions, using a technological platform called "silicon
photonics". Silicon photonics offers the unique opportunity to transmit data up to Terabit/s,
optimizing cost and performance.
SerDes
Gigabit Ethernet
Silicon Photonics