Predictive Software Scheduling as an Early-Warning Hint Layer for Optical Engine Thermal Drift in Heterogeneous SoIC Packaging
For heterogeneous SoIC packaging with optical engines, this work provides an early-warning mechanism to mitigate thermal-optical coupling, though it is an incremental solution to a known bottleneck.
The paper addresses thermal drift in co-packaged optics for advanced semiconductor nodes, proposing a predictive software scheduling layer that reduces BER degradation by 40% compared to reactive thermal management.
As semiconductor scaling reaches the A16 / 2 nm node, the integration of co-packaged optics (CPO) via TSMC's Co-Packaged Optics Ultra Engine (COUPE) architecture introduces critical thermal-optical coupling challenges. Micro-ring resonators embedded in the Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) layer are exquisitely sensitive to temperature: a deviation of merely +-1.7 nm in resonant wavelength causes measurable Bit Error Rate (BER) degradation.