Key technologies of photonic artificial intelligence chip structure and algorithm

Abstract

Artificial intelligence chips (AICs) are the intersection of integrated circuits and artificial intelligence (AI), involving structure design, algorithm analysis, chip fabrication and application scenarios. Due to their excellent ability in data processing, AICs show a long-term industrial prospect in big data services, cloud centers, etc. However, with the conceivable exhaustion of Moore’s Law, the size of traditional electronic AICs (EAICs) is gradually approaching the limit, and an architectural update is highly required. Photonic artificial intelligence chips (PAIC) utilize light beam propagation in the silicon waveguide, contributing to a high parallelism configuration, fast calculation speed and low latency. Due to light manipulation, PAICs perform well in anti-electromagnetic interference and energy conservation. This invited paper summarized the recent research on PAICs. The characteristics of different hardware structures are discussed. The current widely used training algorithm is given and the Photonic Design Automatic (PDA) simulation platform is introduced. In addition, the authors’ related work on PAICs is presented and we believe that PAICs may play a critical role in the deployment of data processing technology.