The central aim of the overall is the realization of electro-optical circuit boards (EOCB) by using thin glass as known from display technology. Such technologies give the possibility to develop products with improved performance, higher reliability, lower costs and higher energy efficiency. A crucial building block is the integration of optical signal transmission within the EOCB. A presentation of size-enlarged EOCB with holohedrally integrated glass foils is subject of the paper. These EOCB are capable to provide future bandwidth standards through integrated optical waveguides for high speed intra system optical data transmission as well as sensor technology. Therefore structuring technologies have been developed that are compatible to the industrially introduced PCB manufacturing. Already established processes as well as new approaches were analyzed for their eligibility and have been applied for the EOCB process

First time an electro-optical circuit board (EOCB) is demonstrated with integrated planar multimode glass waveguide panel and out-of plane spherical mirror based coupling elements. Such EOCBs will be needed in upcoming high performance computers and data storage network environments. Light from 850 nm up to 1550 nm can be directly coupled from the optical engine mounted mid-plane on the EOCB and coupled into low loss optical waveguides for signal transmission. The demonstration platform comprises a multilayer EOCB with 1301 electrical through glass vias (TGVs), two embedded thin glass layers, planar integrated gradient-index multimode glass waveguides and mid-board optical coupling interface. The evaluated demonstrator system performed with insertion loss of 1.94 dB at wavelength of 850 nm for link distance of 7.1 cm. In best case without misalignment the out-of plane coupling loss is 3.5 dB

In this paper, the return-current paths of signal vias transiting multilayered stack-ups are optimized using the M3-approach (methodologies, models, measures). A methodology for suppressing the excitation of parallel-plate modes in these stack-ups is first proposed. The result of this methodology is a stack-up with well-defined paths for the returning conduction currents. Secondly, a model of the stack-up is developed and experimentally verified using measurement results. The model is then applied to study the impact of the impedance of the return-current paths on the effectiveness of the proposed stack-up in suppressing the excitation of cavity resonance modes. Based on the results of this study, appropriate designs measures for optimizing the return-current paths of the signal vias are derived. To demonstrate the advantages of these measures, they are applied to fabricate a new test board with the proposed stack-up. The measurement results show excellent signal transmission and no dips in the insertion loss of the signal via for frequencies up to 20 GHz