Authors:	A. Ribeiro, S. Declercq, U. Khan, M. Wang, L. Van Iseghem, W. Bogaerts
Title:	Column-row addressing of thermo-optic phase shifters for controlling large silicon photonic circuits
Format:	International Journal
Publication date:	2/2020
Journal/Conference/Book:	IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics
Volume(Issue):	26(5) p.6100708 (8 pages)
DOI:	10.1109/JSTQE.2020.2975669
Citations:	34 (Dimensions.ai - last update: 16/11/2025) 15 (OpenCitations - last update: 27/6/2025) Look up on Google Scholar
Download:	(3.3MB)

Abstract

We demonstrate a time-multiplexed row-column addressing scheme to drive thermo-optic phase shifters in a silicon photonic circuit. By integrating a diode in series with the heater, we can connect N x M heaters in an matrix topology to N row and M column lines. The heaters are digitally driven with pulse-width modulation, and time-multiplexed over different channels. This makes it possible to drive the circuit without digital-to-analog converters, and using only M+N wires. We demonstrate this concept with a 1 x 16 power splitter tree with 15 thermo-optic phase shifters that are controlled in a 3 x 5 matrix, connected through 8 bond pads.
This technique is especially useful in silicon photonic circuits with many tuners but limited space for electrical connections.

Related Research Topics

• Reconfigurable Photonic Circuits

Related Projects

• ERC-CoG: PhotonicSWARM (Photonic Integrated Circuits using Scattered Waveguide elements in an Adaptive, Reconfigurable Mesh.)