Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Why silicon integrated photonics?
The observation by Gordon Moore in 1965 (now universally referred to as Moore’s law) that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every couple of years has become a beacon that continues to drive the electronics industry [1]. Integrated circuits have grown exponentially from the 30-transistor devices of 1965 to today’s high-end microprocessors exceeding 500 million transistors integrated on a silicon chip the size of your fingernail. Moore’s law will continue, with over one billion transistors per chip expected by 2010. Decades of research and manufacturing investment to drive Moore’s law have resulted in significant cost reductions. As an example, in 1968 the cost of a transistor was around one dollar. By 1995, one dollar bought about 3000 transistors. Today, one dollar purchases about five million transistors [2].
The internet explosion has changed how we go about our everyday lives. The thirst for information and the need to ‘always be connected’ is spawning a new era of communications. This new era will continue to spur the need for higher bandwidth technologies to keep pace with processor performance. Because of Moore’s law, computing today is limited less by the computer’s performance than by the rate at which data can travel between the processor and the outside world. Fiber-optic solutions are replacing copper-based solutions, which can no longer meet the bandwidth and distance requirements needed for worldwide data communications [3]. Over the last decade, optical communication technologies have migrated steadily from long-haul backbones to the network edge, invading metropolitan area networks (MANs) and campus-level ...
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...con Photonics: An Introduction, New Jersey, John Wiley, 2004
3 H. Wong, “Silicon integrated photonics begins to revolutionize,”
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4 GL. Bona, W. Denzel, B. Offrein, R. Germann, H. Salemink, and F. Horst,
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5 M. Paniccia and S. Koehl, “The Silicon Solution,” in IEEE spectrum, p.1915, 2005.
6 H. Wong, “Silicon integrated photonics: potentials and promises,” in EDMO Proceedings, p. 145, 2003.
7 M. Salib, L. Liao, R. Jones, M. Morse, A. Liu, D. Samara-Rubio, D. Alduino, and M. Paniccia, “Silicon Photonics,” Intel Technol. J., vol. 8, p. 143, 2004.
8 M. Paniccia, V. Krutul, and S. Koehl, “A Hybrid Silicon Laser: Silicon Photonics Technology for Future. Tera-Scale Computing,” Tech. Intel.
Magazine, p.1, 2004.
BinOptics Corporation is a privately held high tech start up company located in Cornell’s Business and Technology Park in Ithaca, NY. BinOptics, the company, was based on key technological inventions made at Cornell University. CEO and co-founder, Alex Behfar, worked on the proprietary technology under Professor Valentine during his student tenure at Cornell, while earning his PhD in Electrical Engineering. In November 2000 CEO, Alex Behfar and President, Darius Forghani founded BinOptics. BinOptics received its first round of venture capital funding in January 2001 for an undisclosed amount. Currently, BinOptics houses over twenty employees and they hope to grow to forty by the end of the fiscal year. BinOptics is now in its fourth year of operation and will amassed $2 million in annual revenue. So what does BinOptics produce?
Summary of Clock Speed: Winning Industry Control in the Age of Temporary Advantage by Charles H. Fine
The use of Crystalline Si cells have continued to increase, but the polycrystalline has shown much more potential. Crystalline cells have an indirect band gap energy*. This results in the low optical absorption coefficient. Because of this, the wafers used in the structure needs to be greater than 200µm so that it can absorb the incident light. There is also the problem of the high resistivity of the screen printed Ag grids, high contact resistance between the grid and Si, and also a reduce in the efficiency of the device down to approximately 14%. The Crystalline Si cells are found to have a need for a concentrator system for the cell to be able to produce its full potential. Multicrystalline cells have the advantage of using its growth which reduces the cost, rises the throughput, has less sensitivity, and also raises the density of the cells to make a module because of its rectangular shape. These cells, however, result in lower efficiencies than those made from ...
Retrieved from Angel Sajeev John Department of Physics, University of Toronto Photonic Band Gap Materials: Engineering the Fundamental Properties of Light. Retrieved from http://cmp.ameslab.gov/PECSVI/ProgramBook/4MondayMorning.pdf. Soukoulis, C. M. (April, 1996) Photonic Band Gap Materials: The “Semiconductors” of the Future? Retrieved from http://cmp.physics.iastate.edu/soukoulis/publications/171.pdf.
Fiber optics is a new technology that uses rays of light instead of electricity to transmit information over optical fibers at very high speeds. The optical fibers are usually thin strands of glass that are combined into cables and used to send information and computer data in the form of pulses of light. The optical fibers provide much clearer transmission than conventional copper cable and satellite links. The world market for optical fiber continues to grow rapidly, with shipments increasing 14 percent from an estimated 7.0 million kilometers of fiber in 1990 to approximately 8.0 million in 1991. The demand for multimode fiber is predicted to continue to expand through the mid-1990s, with some market analysts indicating that 15 to 20 percent annual growth over the next three years is reasonable. Strong demand is expected for singlemode and multimode fiber to be used in cables for local area networks, telecommunications, cable television (CATV), and transoceanic fiber-optic systems.
The first transistor was demonstrated on Dec. 23, 1947, at Bell Labs by William Shockley. This new invention consisting of P type and N type semiconductive materials (in this case germanium) has completely revolutionized electronics. Transistors quickly replaced vacuum tubes in almost all applications (most notably those in discrete logic). Today when we think of transistors the first thing that comes to mind is computers. Advances in transistor technology and manufacturing processes as well as new materials being used for the semiconductor matrix and wiring have led to smaller, faster, cheaper, lower power transistors. Some of the basic principles behind semiconductor behavior and the restrictions currently faced by modern transistors will be discussed in the following pages.
Gate is patterned with i-line lithography and reduced from 0.5 to 0.04 m with resist ashing and oxide trimming.
All forms of commerce will benefit from fibre optic connectivity as it will lower the cost of communication, which is a vital part of any business. New opportunity for the growth of the data market will emerge as cheaper bandwidth should translate to more users.
As a top company in the semiconductors and processor industry, Advanced Micro Devices specializes in developing computer microprocessors and similar technologies. AMD creates processors for servers, workstations, and personal computers. Its products also include microprocessors, chip-sets, graphics processors, and embedded processors. The history of this company if an interesting and long one. AMD has been around for awhile and has amassed quite a history for themselves. This paper will go over the evolution of AMD processor's as well as the evolution of the company itself.
Moor’s Law: The number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months. (Moore, 1965)
Nanophotonics is the study of the effects of light at the nano-scale. This course on nanophotonics coupled with my previous courses on nanoscale circuit fabrication has taught me a great deal about the nano-scale and nano-electronics. Described in this paper are the uses of several nanophotonic principles which allow us to make and measure in scales never before possible. The first topic, plasmonics, is a physical phenomenon that allows us to measure small changes in thicknesses and also to see well below the diffraction limiting optical restrictions. The implications of this technology are incredible in the fields of biomedical science, nanoengineering, and microscopy. The second topic of this paper, Microscopy, covers two methods of advanced microscopy that allow us to see much smaller than the optical limits allow.
Fiber optic technology has opened the door to many more communication opportunities for the world today. It provides higher fidelity long distance telephone conversations, as well as secure communication systems. Today, more than 90% of the United States long-distance traffic is already carried over optical fiber; more than 15 million miles have been installed, virtually all of it using the original design.
In the past few decades, one field of engineering in particular has stood out in terms of development and commercialisation; and that is electronics and computation. In 1965, when Moore’s Law was first established (Gordon E. Moore, 1965: "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits"), it was stated that the number of transistors (an electronic component according to which the processing and memory capabilities of a microchip is measured) would double every 2 years. This prediction held true even when man ushered in the new millennium. We have gone from computers that could perform one calculation in one second to a super-computer (the one at Oak Ridge National Lab) that can perform 1 quadrillion (1015) mathematical calculations per second. Thus, it is only obvious that this field would also have s...
These silicon wafers has thin slice of silicon which are used in many types of electronics. Every wafer is made from very high quality silicon semiconductor; making the production of such circuits easy. The technology is kept on developing in integrated circuits as developers push to make it more smaller and better circuits (wiseGeek, 2003). Developments in this technology proceed to enlarge continuously, according to a prediction of Moore's "The number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months” (Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder, 2014) although critics of Moore's Law have pointed out that the technology cannot advance infinitely, which means that a ceiling will be reached at some
With this type of increase in transmission rates, the scope of fiber optics in the home becomes enormous. In the fiber optic home of the future you will have the capability of watching your favorite program from any number of different views. You will be able to play 3D games with your friend on the other side of the world. You could take a cooking class in real time from a teacher in Vienna. A virtual salesman can show you a car and all of its gadgets, answer your questions and even give you a virtual test-drive (Fiber Optics, 2006).