Silicon-based optoelectronics for general-purpose matrix computation: a review

Abstract. Conventional electronic processors, which are the mainstream and almost invincible hardware for computation, are approaching their limits in both computational power and energy efficiency, especially in large-scale matrix computation. By combining electronic, photonic, and optoelectronic devices and circuits together, silicon-based optoelectronic matrix computation has been demonstrating great capabilities and feasibilities. Matrix computation is one of the few general-purpose computations that have the potential to exceed the computation performance of digital logic circuits in energy efficiency, computational power, and latency. Moreover, electronic processors also suffer from the tremendous energy consumption of the digital transceiver circuits during high-capacity data interconnections. We review the recent progress in photonic matrix computation, including matrix-vector multiplication, convolution, and multiply–accumulate operations in artificial neural networks, quantum information processing, combinatorial optimization, and compressed sensing, with particular attention paid to energy consumption. We also summarize the advantages of silicon-based optoelectronic matrix computation in data interconnections and photonic-electronic integration over conventional optical computing processors. Looking toward the future of silicon-based optoelectronic matrix computations, we believe that silicon-based optoelectronics is a promising and comprehensive platform for disruptively improving general-purpose matrix computation performance in the post-Moore’s law era.