Abstract
Silicon photonics have generated an increasing interest in the recent year, mainly for optical telecommunications or for optical interconnects in microelectronic circuits. The rationale of silicon photonics is the reduction of the cost of photonic systems through the integration of photonic components and an IC on a common chip, or in the longer term, the enhancement of IC performance with the introduction of optics inside a high performance chip. In order to build a Opto-Electronic Integrated circuit (OEIC), a large European project HELIOS has been launched two years ago. The objective is to combine a photonic layer with a CMOS circuit by different innovative means, using microelectronics fabrication processes. High performance generic building blocks that can be used for a broad range of applications are developed such as WDM sources by III-V/Si heterogeneous integration, fast Si modulators and Ge or InGaAs detectors, Si passive circuits and specific packaging. Different scenari for integrating photonic with an electronic chip and the recent advances on the building blocks of the Helios project are presented.