Researchers demonstrated a silicon photonic modulator reaching 200 Gb/s per wavelength with reduced digital signal processing requirements.

The research reports a silicon photonic modulator operating at 200 gigabits per second per wavelength using four-level pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM4). The result concerns a per-wavelength data rate, not the aggregate bandwidth of a multiwavelength optical link.

The paper is titled “Reduced-DSP 200G/λ Low-Voltage Slow-Light Silicon Modulator Enabled by Built-In EO Equalizer.” Its title identifies reduced digital signal processing (DSP), low-voltage operation, and a built-in electro-optic (EO) equalizer as features of the approach.

Researchers came from the Institute of Science Tokyo, Yokohama National University, AIST, and the Photonics Electronics Technology Research Association. The supplied abstract connects the work to multiterabit-per-second optical interconnects for AI data centers, but does not quantify voltage, power consumption, error rates, or the amount of DSP reduction.