L3MATRIX’s technology development and demonstrator roadmaps are constantly revised and improved in response to emerging market trends and have been linked into the product roadmaps of leading industrial partners. Delivering breakthrough solutions in every aspect of data center interconnection in terms of high-performance, low-energy and cost optical interconnects, L3MATRX is a strong candidate for delivering a strong commercial, scientific and social impact worldwide. Bringing together the major European industrial and research organizations in the field, L3MATRIX is able to create a highly timely thrust and of unprecedented momentum in optical interconnects in Europe with worldwide impact.
The outcome of the L3MATRIX project was to demonstrate the basic building blocks of a co-packaged optical system. Two dimensional silicon photonics arrays with 64 modulators were fabricated in the fab. Novel modulation schemes based on slow light modulation have been developed to assist in achieving efficient performance of the module. Integration of DFB laser sources within each cell in the matrix was demonstrated as well using wafer bonding between the InP and SOI wafers. Packaging of these 2D photonic arrays in a chiplet configuration has been demonstrated using a vertical integration approach in which the optical interconnect matrix was flipchip assembled on top of CMOS mimic chip with 2D vertical fiber coupling. The optical chiplet was further assembled on a substrate to facilitate integration with the multi-chip module of the co-packaged system with a switch surround by several such optical chiplets
A proactive Intellectual Property Rights management strategy was successfully deployed resulting in L3MATRIX foreground innovations being captured in 6 patents.
Regarding the dissemination of L3MATRIX foreground knowledge to the scientific community, during the lifetime of the project, more than 45 publications in journals were generated and more than 50 “other dissemination actions” that included invited talks to prestigious conferences in photonics, workshop presentations etc. Moreover, L3MATRIX organized 3 successful Symposia on Optical Interconnects with more than 150 attendees at each event.
The main project results and technologies are now available to small and medium-sized enterprises for further development, for deep characterization of system embedded photonic interconnect and for validation in data centre environments within ‘PhoxLab - European Photonics Innovation Hub for Optical Interconnects’ at the Fraunhofer IZM in Berlin.
