Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1010078
74 SMT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2018 We try to do that proactively with studies and communication. We find out that a lot of cost is generated by waiting for the failures to happen, so we try to educate customers. There are many challenges. We continue to be highly self-driven, we bring products that relevant to the market, and we see ourselves as a standard to improve upon. On the physical challenges, if the components become too flash mounted on the surface, at some point, there's a physical barrier that needs to be overcome, that will be some sort of a challenge for us, and we have to see how we can manage and overcome that. But other than that, I see only opportunities. I don't see too many challenges. Infrastructure-wise, we are well positioned, I think, to handle all of Asia. There are certain internal organizational developments that we try to grow within the company in order to establish global procedures, but we are already addressing those, and we recognize that needs to be done. Growing bigger comes with more facilities, so you have to make sure you are organized in product development and other globally linked processes are in place. But I think we are on a good track. And yes, there will be challenges, but so far, we've had the humbleness and the self-awareness to recognize them and work on them and be systematic about finding solutions. Las Marias: Do you have any final words? Wack: I appreciate the opportunity you've given us to talk to you and express some of our thoughts and opportunities and future outlooks. I am satisfied with the time I've had the pleasure of spending with you. Thank you for the opportunity. Las Marias: Thank you very much. SMT007 Imec has demonstrated ultra-low power, high- bandwidth optical transceivers through hybrid integration of silicon photonics and FinFET CMOS technologies. In the presented work, a differential FinFET driver was co-designed with a silicon photonics ring modulator, achieving a 40Gb/s NRZ optical modulation at 154fJ/bit dynamic power consumption. The receiver included a FinFET trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) optimized for operation with a Ge waveguide photodiode, enabling 40Gb/s NRZ photodetection with an estimated sensitivity of -10dBm at 75fJ/bit power consumption. High-quality data transmission and reception was also demonstrated in a loop-back experiment at 1330nm wavelength over standard single mode fiber (SMF) with 2dB link margin. Finally, a 4x40Gb/s, 0.1mm2 wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmitter with integrated thermal control was demonstrated, enabling bandwidth scaling beyond 100Gb/s per fiber. "The demonstrated hybrid FinFET-silicon photonics platform integrates high-performance 14nm FinFET CMOS circuits with imec's 300mm silicon photonics technology through dense, low-capacitance Cu micro-bumps. Careful co-design in this combined platform has enabled us to demonstrate 40Gb/s NRZ optical transceivers with extremely low power consumption and high bandwidth density," says Joris Van Campenhout, director of the Optical I/O R&D program at imec. This work has been carried out as part of imec's industrial affiliation R&D program on Optical I/O and was presented at the 2018 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits (June 2018) in a "late news" paper. Source: Imec Hybrid FinFET-Silicon Photonics Technology for Ultra-low Power Optical I/O