Aloe Semiconductor, Inc.’s demonstration is supported by Advanced Micro Foundry, MACOM, and Broadcom
Aloe Semiconductor, Inc. will showcase a 160-Gbaud PAM4 (320-Gb/s) from a silicon-photonic (SiPh) modulator at the Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) conference in San Francisco, CA the week of March 31, 2025. Aloe Semiconductor’s innovative design allows silicon photonics to reach the next jump in bit rate per lane without having to add non-CMOS materials, such as LiNbO3, polymer, gold, or III-V elements.
In optical input/output (OIO) and co-packaged optics (CPO), advanced silicon packaging plays a large role, and continuing to use pure silicon for the photonics, instead of adding new materials, will shorten the time to market. Aloe’s new design will be especially important for these applications, allowing for high speeds at low cost.
“We show that with innovative design, silicon photonic modulators can move well beyond 106 Gbaud, allowing the next generation to continue taking advantage of silicon’s integration capability, advanced packaging compatibility, and fast time to market,” said Aloe’s CEO Christopher (Chris) Doerr.
The enabling technology is a novel SiPh Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) design that increases bandwidth without trade-offs in loss or required voltage drive. It requires only conventional silicon processing, saving power and cost. In this demonstration, the modulator is driven by a high-bandwidth open-collector driver from MACOM. The driver and modulator are flip-chipped side-by-side on a high-density substrate. The electrical input signal is generated by a Keysight AWG 8199B and the optical signal is received by a Keysight 1032A. The 160-Gbaud PAM4 eye diagram is shown below.
With this demonstration, Aloe continues to pave the way to higher speeds, using silicon photonics technology to create radically new, application-specific solutions for optical communications.
Aloe Semiconductor was founded in 2022 by former Acacia Communications Associate Vice President of Advanced Development Christopher Doerr and is based in New Jersey, USA. Find out more about the company here: https://aloesemi.com/.