A Solver Combination Strategy For Photonic Integrated Components


With the increasing demand for optical bandwidth, photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology is undergoing a growth rate very similar to the one seen by electronic integrated circuits over the last half-century. To keep up with the increasing number of components and circuit complexity, efficient and reliable automated design tools are necessary to carry out virtual prototyping, improve yield... » read more

Research Bits: Jan. 2


Synaptic transistor Researchers from Northwestern University, Boston College, and MIT developed a synaptic transistor that simultaneously processes and stores information similar to the human brain. The team said the transistor goes beyond simple machine learning tasks to categorize data and is capable of performing associative learning. The new device is stable at room temperatures. It als... » read more

Shedding More Light On Photonics For Multi-Die Systems


By Kenneth Larsen and Twan Korthorst Photonics harness the speed of light for fast, low-power, high-capacity data transfer. A tremendous amount of data needs to be moved swiftly across different components in a multi-die system. Considering this, exploiting the advantages of light is one way to mitigate heat dissipation and energy consumption concerns while delivering fast data transmission.... » read more

Research Bits: October 24


Photonic-electronic hardware processes 3D data Researchers from the University of Oxford, University of Muenster, University of Heidelberg, and University of Exeter are developing integrated photonic-electronic hardware capable of processing three-dimensional data, which the team claims boosts data processing parallelism for AI tasks. The researchers added an extra parallel dimension to the... » read more

Fabless Approach To Embed Active Nanophotonics in Bulk CMOS By Co-Designing The BEOL Layers For Optical Functionality (MIT)


A technical paper titled “Metal-Optic Nanophotonic Modulators in Standard CMOS Technology” was published by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Abstract: "Integrating nanophotonics with electronics promises revolutionary applications ranging from light detection and ranging (LiDAR) to holographic displays. Although semiconductor manufacturing of nanophotonics in Silicon ... » read more

Research Bits: September 26


2D waveguides Researchers from the University of Chicago found that a sheet of glass crystal just a few atoms thick could trap and carry light efficiently up to a centimeter. In tests, the researchers found they could use extremely tiny prisms, lenses, and switches to guide the path of the light along a chip. “We were utterly surprised by how powerful this super-thin crystal is; not on... » read more

Research Bits: August 22


Photonic memory Researchers from Zhejiang University, Westlake University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a 5-bit photonic memory capable of fast volatile modulation and proposed a solution for a nonvolatile photonic network supporting rapid training. This was made possible by integrating the low-loss phase-change material (PCM) antimonite (Sb2S3) into a silicon photonic plat... » read more

HBM’s Future: Necessary But Expensive


High-bandwidth memory (HBM) is becoming the memory of choice for hyperscalers, but there are still questions about its ultimate fate in the mainstream marketplace. While it’s well-established in data centers, with usage growing due to the demands of AI/ML, wider adoption is inhibited by drawbacks inherent in its basic design. On the one hand, HBM offers a compact 2.5D form factor that enables... » read more

Research Bits: June 13


Converting heat to electricity Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado Boulder fabricated a device to boost the conversion of heat into electricity. The technique involves depositing hundreds of thousands of microscopic columns of gallium nitride atop a silicon wafer. Layers of silicon are then removed from the underside of the waf... » read more

Nanoimprint Finally Finds Its Footing


Nanoimprint lithography, which for decades has trailed behind traditional optical lithography, is emerging as the technology of choice for the rapidly growing photonics and biotech chips markets. First introduced in the mid-1990s, nanoimprint lithography (NIL) has consistently been touted as a lower-cost alternative to traditional optical lithography. Even today, NIL potentially is capable o... » read more

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