Compact, Large-Scale Photonic Neurons by Modulation-and-Weight Microring Resonators
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Zhang, Weipeng Wang, Yuxin Lederman, Joshua C. Shastri, Bhavin J. Prucnal, Paul R. |
| author_facet | Zhang, Weipeng Wang, Yuxin Lederman, Joshua C. Shastri, Bhavin J. Prucnal, Paul R. |
| contents | Neuromorphic photonics promises sub-nanosecond latency, ultrawide bandwidth, and high parallelism, but practical scalability is constrained by fabrication tolerances, spectral alignment, and tuning energy. Here, we present a large-scale, compact, and reconfigurable photonic neuron in which each microring performs modulation and weighting simultaneously. By exploiting both carrier and thermal tuning within a single device, this architecture reduces footprint, relaxes spectral alignment requirements to just two optical components, and yields a steep transfer response that lowers tuning energy. The proposed neuron supports multiple operating configurations, allowing its dynamical behavior to be adapted to different computational tasks. In particular, a short electrical feedback path enables recurrent operation, providing tunable short- and long-term memory for temporal processing. Using a 10-microring resonator array, we demonstrate both spatial and temporal computing, including a 3$\times$3 convolution for image processing with an error of $<$5\% and high-frequency financial time-series prediction. Each modulation-weighting element occupies 80$\times$45 \SI{}{\micro\meter^2} and consumes an average of \SI{0.186}{\milli\watt}, corresponding to a compute density of \SI{4.67}{TOPS/s/\milli\meter^2}. Excluding electronic power, the on-chip tuning efficiency reaches approximately \SI{105}{TOPs/\watt}, which is comparable to state-of-the-art implementations. These results indicate that modulation-and-weighting microring resonator banks provide a scalable building block for large-scale neuromorphic photonic systems, offering a favorable combination of compact footprint, low power consumption, and functional flexibility. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_11369 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Compact, Large-Scale Photonic Neurons by Modulation-and-Weight Microring Resonators Zhang, Weipeng Wang, Yuxin Lederman, Joshua C. Shastri, Bhavin J. Prucnal, Paul R. Optics Neuromorphic photonics promises sub-nanosecond latency, ultrawide bandwidth, and high parallelism, but practical scalability is constrained by fabrication tolerances, spectral alignment, and tuning energy. Here, we present a large-scale, compact, and reconfigurable photonic neuron in which each microring performs modulation and weighting simultaneously. By exploiting both carrier and thermal tuning within a single device, this architecture reduces footprint, relaxes spectral alignment requirements to just two optical components, and yields a steep transfer response that lowers tuning energy. The proposed neuron supports multiple operating configurations, allowing its dynamical behavior to be adapted to different computational tasks. In particular, a short electrical feedback path enables recurrent operation, providing tunable short- and long-term memory for temporal processing. Using a 10-microring resonator array, we demonstrate both spatial and temporal computing, including a 3$\times$3 convolution for image processing with an error of $<$5\% and high-frequency financial time-series prediction. Each modulation-weighting element occupies 80$\times$45 \SI{}{\micro\meter^2} and consumes an average of \SI{0.186}{\milli\watt}, corresponding to a compute density of \SI{4.67}{TOPS/s/\milli\meter^2}. Excluding electronic power, the on-chip tuning efficiency reaches approximately \SI{105}{TOPs/\watt}, which is comparable to state-of-the-art implementations. These results indicate that modulation-and-weighting microring resonator banks provide a scalable building block for large-scale neuromorphic photonic systems, offering a favorable combination of compact footprint, low power consumption, and functional flexibility. |
| title | Compact, Large-Scale Photonic Neurons by Modulation-and-Weight Microring Resonators |
| topic | Optics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.11369 |