Photonic integrated circuits on inp technology platform enabling low cost metro networks and next generation pons
Cloud applications, 5G and IoT are pushing modern networks over the edge to satisfy the stringent high capacity and low latency demands. Photonic integration is a key enabling technology to tackle the new challenges and to bring new products and services to the market. PICaboo will develop novel building blocks on the InP PIC platform of TUe and III-V Lab based on the generic foundry model aiming to enhance PIC performances and reduce development costs. It will develop compact models of the building blocks and will compile them in PDK-compatible libraries allowing designers to explore their use in a wide range of applications hence maximizing their exploitation potential. PICaboo PIC demonstrators will transform the optical metro and access networks in terms of speed, footprint, power consumption and cost. The high speed EAM-based transmitters will employ all-optical equalization functionality on-chip which will scale PON line rate to 50/100Gb/s reducing the electronic signal pre-processing required for meeting the 29dB power budget of the optical distribution network within the expected dispersion limit. Both single EAM-MZM and coherent EAM-IQM transmitter PICs will leverage power consumption benefits of 50 and 65% respectively compared to 50G EML solutions and overall cost reduction by almost 20%. The dual polarization coherent receiver PIC employs integrated reset-free phase and polarization control allowing for complex DSP functions to be performed directly at the optical domain. In this case, power consumption reduction of more than 30% with concurrent cost benefits 3.6x will be achieved compared to standard coherent transceivers stemming from the use of simplified direct detection DSPs and low-cost tunable lasers, making PICaboo an attractive technology within the 20-80km DCI range. Exploitation of the PIC demonstrators will be pursued by NOKIA and ADVA. VLC will exploit the developed PDK libraries for a fast uptake of PICaboo building blocks by end-users.