Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English en
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-05-29

Photonic Interconnect Layer on CMOS by Wafer-Scale Integration

Objective

For future generation electronic circuits a severe bottleneck is expected on the global interconnect level. One of the most promising solutions is the use of an optical interconnect layer. Therefore, PICMOS will demonstrate the feasibility of adding a photonic interconnect layer on top of silicon ICs. This interconnect layer will be fabricated by a combination of wafer bonding and wafer-scale processing steps. It will be planar and will be built from a high-density passive optical wiring circuit integrated with InP-based sources and detectors using a wafer bonding approach.

Two different integration strategies will be investigated: a wafer-to-wafer bond technology where the photonic interconnect layer is fabricated in parallel with the electronic circuits wafer and where both wafers are subsequently bonded together and an above-IC approach where the interconnect layer is fabricated directly on top of the electronic circuits. For the first approach, SOI-waveguides allowing for very high-density wiring will be developed. For the above-IC approach, an innovative type of high-contrast polymer waveguides compatible with CMOS back-end processing will be developed. Both types of waveguides will be fabricated using standard CMOS-processing techniques.

The III-V epi material for the active photonic devices will be bonded on top of the waveguide circuits and the substrate will be removed. The active devices will be defined in the remaining membrane. In all fabrication steps, only waferscale technologies will be employed with the only exception made for the bonding of the III-V semiconductor material. Because of the large size difference between silicon and InP wafers and the limited space occupied by the active photonic devices, a rapid die-to-wafer bonding step will be developed for this step. In parallel with the technological oriented work, system studies will define application domains for PICMOS and generic parameter specifications for all subcomponents.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

Data not available

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

STREP - Specific Targeted Research Project

Coordinator

INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICRO-ELECTRONICA CENTRUM VZW
EU contribution
No data
Address
Kapeldreef 75
3001 LEUVEN
Belgium

See on map

Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Participants (8)

My booklet 0 0