Electronics-photonics co-design for robust control of optical devices in dense integrated photonic circuits

The increasing requirements in terms of bandwidth and power efficiency demanded by telecommunication, automotive and datacenter applications are pushing copper-based interconnections close to their intrinsic limits [1]. On the same line, the emerging trends on new rack-scale multi-socket computational units are putting pressure on chip-to-chip interconnections, calling for high speed and low-latency performance at a reduced energy and cost [2]. These technological requirements are making copper-based interconnects the bottleneck of high-performance systems, suggesting the use of point-to-point optical connectivity not only for long range communications but also at short or ultra-short distances [3]. With respect to other solid-state solutions, Silicon Photonics (SiP) seems to be the ideal candidate to answer to these needs, as it shares the same fabrication technologies of the microelectronic industry and is therefore expected to play a significant role in the field.