Photonic Microwave CMOS for Next-Generation Machine Vision

As machine vision systems demand higher resolution, faster processing, and more intelligent sensing capabilities, new imaging architectures are needed to overcome the bandwidth, latency, and power limitations of conventional CMOS-based sensors and processing systems.

Wireless imaging using microwave photonic CMOS detects and transfers frequency responses from low-intensity, long-wavelength emissions to readout integrated circuits and optical processors, rather than transmitting only electron signals from light currents in a CMOS image sensor. These signals are affected by resistance-capacitance (RC) delays and signal losses through metal wires. The signal-to-noise ratio is improved through photonic CMOS nonlinear optics and photon-accelerated millimeter-wave modulation.

The architecture and circuit design of previous-generation application-specific integrated circuits and computers are based on metal interconnects and traditional CMOS (planar, FinFET, gate-all-around), which are slowed down by impeded radio frequency performance at higher frequencies, increased RC delays, excessive power consumption, low yield, and high cost.

Lidar and radar systems for commercial and defense applications need to process light waves, millimeter waves, and a large amount of data at the same time. Wireless imaging and system-on-chip photonic computing are needed to coordinate spectral analysis, pattern recognition, and remote optical parallel processing.

The optoelectronic engines in co-packaged optics (CPO) can benefit from laser CMOS technology. If lasers are designed and fabricated outside of CMOS, severe delays may occur because separated CMOS and lasers need multiple levels of metal interconnects to operate. As a result, the entire system is slowed down. The performance advantages of CPO and optical engines using photonic CMOS include simplified process integration, higher speeds and frequencies, lower cost, fewer RC delays, and lower power consumption.

Logic designs with photonic CMOS are essential for optical computing and CPO. Optical memories, such as photonic DRAM, flash memory, and SRAM, are necessary for optical computing systems with microwave photonic parallel processing.

About the presenter
James N. Pan, Ph.D., is currently a senior principal engineer at Northrop Grumman Corp. in Linthicum, Md. Before joining Northrop Grumman, he worked at Semicoa Corp. (Costa Mesa, Calif.), Fairchild Semiconductor (West Jordan, Utah), IBM T. J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.), IBM Microelectronics (Fishkill, N.Y.), AMD (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Atmel Corp. (Colorado Springs, Colo.), and Micron Technology Inc. (Boise, Idaho).

He received a BSEE from National Taiwan University (Taipei, Taiwan), an MSEE from the University of Texas at Austin (Austin, Texas), and a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University (West Lafayette, Ind.). He started AELC (American Enterprise and License Company) in 2009.