Programmable High-Precision Weight Bank Based on Integrated Semiconductor Optical Amplifier Array
Jiahui Liu, Kaifei Tang, Xiang Ji, Xin Zhou, Chuanbo Zhang, Ling Wang, Wentao Sun, Pan Dai, Shaobo Li, Xiang Ma, Rulei Xiao, Xiangfei Chen · 2023
The primary challenge in in-memory photonic computing lies in achieving high-precision weight control, which enables efficient parallel multiply accumulate (MAC) operations and enhances computing accuracy. Due to environmental factors like temperature fluctuations, achieving accurate weight control in photonic computing becomes challenging. To address the aforementioned issue, our solution involves an integrated array of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) as photonic synapses, forming a programmable weight bank. We have designed and fabricated a monolithically integrated 8-channel DFB-SOA chip, which demonstrates a remarkable record-high precision of 9.2 bits for weight control.