InGaAs Transceivers for Smart Pixels

A promising route for the construction of smart pixels is to flip-chip bond III-V semiconductor devices as detectors[1] and modulators onto silicon circuitry. InGaAs quantum well devices grown on GaAs substrates and operating at around 1 μm provide a good option for the III-V devices since there are high power lasers available including Nd:YLF at 1047nm and substrate removal is not necessary. Silicon CMOS is attractive for the electronics since it is a mature technology, allows very high packing density and has the low power consumption necessary for systems based on many channels each with a high degree of smartness. In our work we have so far used 1 μm double metal n-well CMOS and future devices will be fabricated using 0.7/0.8 μm CMOS. The CMOS process limits the available voltage swing for driving the InGaAs modulators to 5 V.