Optical fiber shuffle circuit
AssigneeLightmatter, Inc.
InventorsRobert Turner, Bradford Turcott, Darius Bunandar
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Described herein are optical fiber shuffle circuits designed to programmably interconnect any number of ports without having to rely on thousands of optical fibers or more. The optical fiber shuffle circuits developed by the inventors and described herein can be built into photonic interposers. Photonic interposers of the types described herein include, for example, semiconductor substrates patterned (photolithographically) with photonic integrated circuits such as waveguides, modulators, photodetectors, switches, couplers, etc., or any combination thereof.
Claims20
A photonic system, comprising:
- a photonic interposer patterned on a substrate, the photonic interposer having a plurality of sites, wherein each of at least some of the plurality of sites comprises:
- an optical flow switch having an input waveguide and a plurality of output waveguides, wherein at least some of the output waveguides couple the site to one or more other sites of the plurality of sites;
- a fiber coupler coupled to the optical flow switch;
- a plurality of optical modulators coupled to the input waveguide;
- a first plurality of electrical connections configured to connect to a corresponding processor die;
- a second plurality of electrical connections configured to connect to a corresponding router die, wherein the optical modulators are coupled to the second plurality of electrical connections;
- and
- a plurality of traces configured to couple the corresponding processor die to a corresponding router die when the processor die and the router die are mounted on the photonic interposer.
A computing system, comprising:
- a plurality of processor dies and a plurality of router dies, each router die comprising an electronic router configured to programmably route data in an electronic domain;
- a photonic interposer patterned on a substrate, the photonic interposer having a plurality of sites, wherein the plurality of processor dies and the plurality of router dies are mounted on the photonic interposer, wherein each of at least some of the plurality of sites comprises:
- an optical flow switch having an input waveguide and a plurality of output waveguides, the optical flow switch configured to programmably route data in a photonic domain, wherein at least some of the output waveguides couple the site to one or more other sites of the plurality of sites;
- a fiber coupler coupled to the optical flow switch;
- a plurality of optical modulators coupled to the input waveguide;
- a first plurality of electrical connections connecting to a corresponding processor die of the plurality of processor dies;
- and
- a second plurality of electrical connections connecting to a corresponding router die of the plurality of router dies, wherein the optical modulators are coupled to the electronic router of the corresponding router die via the second plurality of electrical connections.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.