LED-based photonic communication and processing unit

A photonic device configured to perform a mathematical operation, comprising:

• a modulatable light emitting diode (LED) configured to emit light;
• a modulatable detector optically coupled to an output of the modulatable LED;
• a controller electrically coupled to both the modulatable LED and the modulatable detector, the controller being configured to encode a first value in the light emitted by the modulatable LED and to encode a second value in a characteristic of the modulatable detector;
• a receiver configured to determine a result of the mathematical operation based on an electrical signal produced by the modulatable detector;
• and
• a photonic circuit optically coupling the modulatable LED to the modulatable detector, wherein the photonic circuit comprises silicon nitride waveguides and an input grating configured to couple visible light emitted by the modulatable LED into the silicon nitride waveguides.

A method for performing a mathematical operation, the method comprising:

• generating an encoded optical signal indicative of a first value using a modulatable light emitting diode (LED) configured to emit visible light, wherein the first value is a value of an input matrix;
• setting a characteristic of a modulatable photodetector, optically coupled to the LED, to be indicative of a second value, wherein the second value is a weighting value of a weighting matrix;
• generating, using the modulatable photodetector, a photocurrent indicative of both the first value and the second value;
• and
• determining a result of the mathematical operation based on the photocurrent.