A Laser-forwarded Coherent 10Gb/s BPSK Transceiver using Monolithic Microring Resonators in 45nm SOI CMOS

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the first fully integrated coherent binary-phase-shift-keying (BPSK) link using microring resonat(MRR) with forwarded laser LO signal. It is enabled by integration of silicon-photonic blocks like optical DAC based modulator, 3-dB coupler, and MRR-based balanced photodetector (PD) in a monolithic zero-change 45nm SOI CMOS. The link operates at 10 Gb/s with transmitter driver consuming 40fJ/bit and receiver with OMA sensitivity of 15.1dBm consuming 450fJ/bit. The laser-forwarded BPSK link improves the laser power budget by $\sim 6$ dB compared to direct detection NRZ link with same components.