Electrical chip-and board-level connections are becoming more and more a bottleneck in computation. A solution to that problem could be optical connections, which allow a higher bandwidth. The usage of free space optics can avoid the problem of crosstalk and geometrical signal path crossings in systems with a high density of interconnections. The choice of appropriate design parameters, allowing the realization of such interconnections, is a complicated task. We present an evolutionary algorithm that is able to find these parameters. We describe the parallel execution of that algorithm and present optimization results.

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A microoptical 3D interconnection scheme and fabricated samples of this fiberoptical multi-channel interconnection with an actual capacity of 144 channels were shown. Additionally the aspects of micrometer-fabrication of such microoptical interconnection modules in the view of alignment-tolerances were considered. For the realization of the interconnection schemes, the approach of planar-integrated free space optics (PIFSO) is used with its well known advantages. This approach offers the potential for complex interconnectivity, and yet compact size.

A parallel board-level interconnection design is presented consisting of 32 channels, each operating at 10 Gbps. The hardware uses available optoelectronic components (VCSEL, TIA, pin-diodes) and a combination of planarintegrated free-space optics, fiber-bundles and available MEMS-components, like the DMD TM from Texas Instruments. As a specific feature, we present a new modular inter-board interconnect, realized by 3D fiber-matrix connectors. The performance of the interconnect is evaluated with regard to optical properties and power consumption. Finally, we discuss the application of the interconnect for strongly distributed system architectures, as, for example, in high performance embedded computing systems and data centers.

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