The H2020-SPACE-SIPHODIAS project: space-grade opto-electronic interfaces for photonic digital and analogue very-high-throughput satellite payloads

Abstract

The EU-SIPhoDiAS project deals with the development of critical photonic building blocks needed for highperformance and low size, weight, and power (SWaP) photonics-enabled Very High Throughput Satellites (VHTS). In this presentation, we report on the design and fabrication activities during the first year of the project concerning the targeted family of digital and microwave photonic components. This effort aims to demonstrate components of enhanced reliability at technology readiness level (TRL) 7. Specifically, with respect to microwave photonic links, we report: (i) the design of Ka and Q-bands analogue photodetectors that will be assembled in compact packages, allowing for very high bandwidth per unit area and (ii) on the design of compact V-band GaAs electro-optic modulator arrays, which use a folded-path optical configuration to manage all fiber interfaces packaged opposite direct in-line RF feeds for ease of board layouts and mass/size benefits. With respect to digital links, we report on the development of 100 Gb/s (4 x 25 Gb/s) digital optical transceiver sub-assemblies developed using flip-chip mounting of electronic and opto-parts on a high-reliability borosilicate substrate. The transceiver chipset developed specifically for this project refers to fullycustom 25 Gb/s radiation hard (RH) VCSEL driver and TIA ICs designed in IHP's 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS Rad-Hard process.

Microwave photonics for space

“…Recent EU initiatives dedicated to creating robust photonic components for space communications are Orionas and SIPhoDiAS programs, which have played a pivotal role in accelerating the adoption of photonics in the space domain [18], [19]. Among these, the PIOTS program intends to create and demonstrate an end-to-end packaging line at the INPHOTEC technology center [20].…”

High-speed optical transceiver integrated chipset and module for on-board VCSEL-based satellite optical interconnects

“…We report eye diagram performance at data rates up to ICSO 2022 International Conference on Space Optics Dubrovnik, Croatia 3-7 October 2022 15 Gb/s with Non-Return-to-Zero (NRZ) On-Off-Keying modulation (OOK). The work is performed in the frames of H2020-SPACE-SIPHODIAS [5] project, which is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 870522.…”