Project description
Photonics
The GALACTICO photonic technology platform aims to disrupt the transition from 10/40G to Terabit long-haul networks providing new generation 100G and next generation 400G and 1T photonic interfaces.
Galactico answers the question of how to make the internet 100 times faster without developing optical networks from scratch.
Project objectives:
GALACTICO is a Framework Program (FP) 7 European Commission co-funded project. The project is application-driven and aims to provide a photonic technology platform to disrupt the transition from 10/40 Gb/s to high-capacity Terabit long-haul networks. To achieve this goal, GALACTICO aims to squeeze current bulk and costly 100GbE interfaces into compact and cost-efficient silicon-based photonic integrated circuits. GALACTICO aims to provide future-proof scalability towards TbE by demonstrating fully integrated multi-carrier super-channel coherent transmitters and receivers that deliver a massive amount of aggregate bandwidth being compliant with the grid boundaries posed by NSN FlexiGrid approach.
The technical objectives of the project are:
• Development of a low-loss Silicon-on-Insulator integration platform for merging GaAs, InP and Si
• Fabrication of high-speed and low voltage (3V) GaAs polarization multiplexed IQ modulator arrays
• Fabrication of high-speed flip-chip compatible InP photodetectors
• Fabrication of low-power electrical consumption (1W) multi-level (up to 6 levels) SiGe modulator drivers and monolithic Ge photodetector arrays
• Demonstration of 100 Gb/s PM-QPSK coherent transmitters and receivers for “new-gen” 100G linecards
• Demonstration of up to 320 Gb/s single carrier PM-16QAM and PM-32QAM transmitter and receiver
• Demonstration of multi-carrier 512 Gb/s and up to 1.28 Tb/s DWDM DP-16/32QAM transmitters and receivers for upcoming 400G and 1T Flexigrid OTN systems
• Demonstration of multi-GbE data transport using Telecom Italia test plant
Currently system vendors request a photonic integration technology to deliver practical and cost-effective 100GbE systems. GALACTICO is a project that aims to provide this technology and disrupt the transition from 10/40Gb/s to 100GbE core networks. To achieve this goal, GALACTICO aims to squeeze current bulk and costly 100GbE interfaces into silicon-based PICs and provide integrated coherent transmitters and receivers that deliver a massive amount of aggregate bandwidth. To address cost, performance and volume, GALACTICO aims to provide the right mix of the three most established integration materials, i.e. InP, GaAs, Si and combine their strenghts on a common silicon platform. The GALACTICO platform will offer low loss (~0.1dB/cm) silicon waveguides and <1dB fiber-to-chip coupling loss. The board will be used to integrate densely all the polarization and filtering components. GALACTICO will develop the first SOI-compatible GaAs IQ-modulators. The available large GaAs wafers will enable volume production without compromising performance. The modulators will exhibit 30GHz electro-optic bandwidth with ~3V driving voltage. To address scalability, GALACTICO will integrate on-board arrays of 4x GaAs IQ-modulators suitable for DWDM coherent transmitter PICs. GALACTICO will also exploit the high-performance InP material by integrating arrays of 8-element 40GHz flip-chip compatible photodetectors for the DWDM coherent receivers. GALACTICO will integrate on-board all the electronic circuits using SiGe HBT technology. New 4level, 32Gbaud drivers will be integrated with the linear IQ modulators to realize 16QAM and enable line rates beyond 200 Gb/s. GALACTICO will deliver the following fully functional PICs: 1) 100Gb/s DP-QPSK coherent transmitter and receiver, 2) 512 Gb/s DWDM DP-16QAM coherent transmitter and receiver and 3) 256 Gb/s DP-16QAM transmitter achieving 5.12bit/sec/Hz spectral efficiency. Finally, GALACTICO will explore the limitations of high constellation size at high baud rate with the generation of single carrier 320 Gb/s DP-32QAM and DWDM 1.28 Tb/s combining a 6-level driver and the integrated polarization multiplexed GaAs IQ modulators. By so doing GALACTICO will open the way for next generation TbE networks.
Fields of science
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
FP7-ICT-2009-5
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CP - Collaborative project (generic)Coordinator Contact
Coordinator
15236 Frankfurt Oder
Germany