53 GBd PAM-4 fully-integrated silicon photonics transmitter with a hybrid flip-chip bonded laser.

We present a fully-integrated single-lane 53 GBd PAM-4 silicon photonics (SiPh) transmitter (Tx) with a flip-chip bonded laser diode (LD). The LD is butt-coupled to a Si edge coupler including a SiO2 suspended spot-size converter. The coupled power exceeds 10 dBm with a 1 dB allowable misalignment of 2.3 µm. The RF and eye performances of the Tx are evaluated. Extinction ratio >5 dB is obtained at 3.5 Vppd voltage swing. Aided by silicon capacitors, the Tx decouples parasitic inductances leading to remarkable improvements in the eye openings and transmitter dispersion eye closure quaternary by 1.16 dB. By implementing the fully-integrated Tx with driver packaging, we successfully demonstrate 106 Gb/s real-time operation satisfying KP4-FEC threshold at -5 dBm receiver sensitivity.