Design automation for integrated optics

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Title Design automation for integrated optics
Publication Type dissertation
School or College College of Engineering
Department Electrical & Computer Engineering
Author Condrat, Christopher
Date 2014-08
Description Recent breakthroughs in silicon photonics technology are enabling the integration of optical devices into silicon-based semiconductor processes. Photonics technology enables high-speed, high-bandwidth, and high-fidelity communications on the chip-scale-an important development in an increasingly communications-oriented semiconductor world. Significant developments in silicon photonic manufacturing and integration are also enabling investigations into applications beyond that of traditional telecom: sensing, filtering, signal processing, quantum technology-and even optical computing. In effect, we are now seeing a convergence of communications and computation, where the traditional roles of optics and microelectronics are becoming blurred. As the applications for opto-electronic integrated circuits (OEICs) are developed, and manufacturing capabilities expand, design support is necessary to fully exploit the potential of this optics technology. Such design support for moving beyond custom-design to automated synthesis and optimization is not well developed. Scalability requires abstractions, which in turn enables and requires the use of optimization algorithms and design methodology flows. Design automation represents an opportunity to take OEIC design to a larger scale, facilitating design-space exploration, and laying the foundation for current and future optical applications-thus fully realizing the potential of this technology. This dissertation proposes design automation for integrated optic system design. Using a buildingblock model for optical devices, we provide an EDA-inspired design flow and methodologies for optical design automation. Underlying these flows and methodologies are new supporting techniques in behavioral and physical synthesis, as well as device-resynthesis techniques for thermal-aware system integration. We also provide modeling for optical devices and determine optimization and constraint parameters that guide the automation techniques. Our techniques and methodologies are then applied to the design and optimization of optical circuits and devices. Experimental results are analyzed to evaluate their efficacy. We conclude with discussions on the contributions and limitations of the approaches in the context of optical design automation, and describe the tremendous opportunities for future research in design automation for integrated optics.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Design automation; Integrated optics; Logic synthesis; Photonics; Routing; Thermal aware placement
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Christopher Condrat 2014
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 4,565,726 bytes
Identifier etd3/id/3204
ARK ark:/87278/s6zs64qg
Setname ir_etd
ID 196770
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6zs64qg
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