Ultra‐Power‐Efficient, Electrically Programmable, Multi‐State Photonic Flash Memory on a Heterogeneous III‐V/Si Platform
Stanley S. Cheung, Di Liang, Yuan Yuan, Yiwei Peng, Bassem M. Tossoun, Yingtao Hu, Xian Xiao, Wayne V. Sorin, Géza Kurczveil, Raymond G. Beausoleil · Laser & Photonics Review · 2024
Abstract Non‐volatile charge‐trap flash memory (CTM) co‐located with heterogeneous III‐V/Si photonics is demonstrated. The wafer‐bonded III‐V/Si CTM cell facilitates non‐volatile optical functionality for a variety of devices such as Mach–Zehnder Interferometers (MZIs), asymmetric MZI lattice filters, and ring resonator filters. The MZI CTM exhibits full write/erase operation (100 cycles with 500 states) with wavelength shifts of Δλ non‐volatile = 1.16 nm (Δn eff,non‐volatile ≈ 2.5 × 10 −4 ) and a dynamic power consumption <20 pW (limited by measurement). Multi‐bit write operation (2 bits) is also demonstrated and verified over a time duration of 24 h and most likely beyond. The cascaded second order ring resonator CTM filter exhibited an improved ER of ≈7.11 dB compared to the MZI and wavelength shifts of Δλ non‐volatile = 0.041 nm (Δ n eff, non‐volatile = 1.5 × 10 −4 ) with similar pW‐level dynamic power consumption as the MZI CTM. The ability to co‐locate photonic computing elements and non‐volatile memory provides an attractive path toward eliminating the von‐Neumann bottleneck.