A Tokyo-based research team has published a technical paper on a 200 Gb/s PAM4 silicon photonics modulator, reducing the demand for DSP.
The Tokyo Institute of Science, Yokohama National University, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and the Photonics and Electronics Technology Research Association (PETRA) jointly published a paper in Nature Communications, reporting a slow-light silicon modulator with an integrated electro-optic equalizer that achieves a single-wavelength 200 Gb/s PAM4 data rate while significantly reducing digital signal processing (DSP) overhead.
The Tokyo Institute of Science, Yokohama National University, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and the Photonics and Electronics Technology Research Association (PETRA) jointly published a technical paper titled “Reduced-DSP 200G/λ Low-Voltage Slow-Light Silicon Modulator Enabled by Built-In EO Equalizer,” announcing the development of a novel silicon-based photonic crystal waveguide slow-light modulator.
This modulator, by integrating an electro-optic (EO) equalizer, overcomes the inherent trade-off between bandwidth and modulation efficiency found in conventional silicon-based Mach–Zehnder modulators, achieving a 200 Gb/s PAM4 modulation rate at a single wavelength (200G/λ) while reducing reliance on high‑power digital signal processing (DSP). Its target application is multi‑Tb/s optical interconnect systems for AI‑driven data centers.
The paper was published online on October 25, 2026, in Nature Communications, Volume 17, Article Number 10446, with a DOI of https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-78128-1；原始报道由Semiconductor. The Engineering website released it on the same day at 20:49:45 UTC (Singapore local time, October 26, 2026).
