Large-scale monolithic integration technologies for InP-based transmitters and receivers

We discuss approaches to achieving large scale InP-based optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) and photonic integrated circuits (PICs). For the last several years, we have developed such platform integration technologies, with a recent success being the demonstration of a 16x16 InGaAs/InP imaging array consisting of 272 field effect transistors and 256 p-i-n detectors. Both growth and processing of the platform structure are simple and robust, allowing for large-scale integration of optical and electronic devices. Other components which have been demonstrated using this versatile receiver/focal plane array technology have been very high sensitivity switched photodiode receivers, and coherent optical receivers. The transmitter technology consists of a modified twin waveguide structure which allows for fault tolerant fabrication of photonic integrated circuits employing any combination of lasers, optical amplifiers, modulators and waveguides. The extremely high yield and simplicity of processing of such InP-based LSI circuits suggests that the scale of optoelectronic integration in this important materials system has reached a new, and highly useful level of sophistication.