Abstract

It is now generally recognized that one likely scenario in which photonics is used in a switching environment is where it is integrated with electronics.¹ This concept takes advantage of the greater capacity of electronics for complexity, functionality, and memory, and the greater capacity of photonics for communications. The most concrete realization of this concept is where photonics functions in the role of optical interconnects between electronic integrated circuit chips (ICs). This entails the monolithic integration of some photonic elements (both receiver and transmitter) on the chip. Also, since an attractive feature of optical I/O is that it can occur normal to the surface of the chip, allowing two-dimensional arrays of interconnects to be formed, surface-normal photonic elements should be used.

© 1993 Optical Society of America