Optical interconnection as an IP macro of a CMOS library

With the aim of producing a switch LSI with several-hundred-Gb/s-class throughput, we first developed LAN-LSIs with 10-Gb/s-class optical input/output (I/O) buffer. The optical I/O buffer was supplied as a set consisting of an optical-electrical package, soft or hard macros of the optical interface, and library files for a targeted CMOS technology. Using such library files, system LSI designers can implement an optical interface in their chips in a conventional design manner.