Interconnection of a two-dimensional array of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers to a receiver array by means of a fiber image guide

Abstract

The implementation of a 10-channel parallel optical interconnect consisting of a two-dimensional array of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, a 1.35-m fiber image guide, and a metal-semiconductor-metal receiver array is described. Transmission rates of 250 Mbits/s per channel are demonstrated with an optical cross talk of less than -27 dB and a loss of -3 dB. Coupling issues associated with image guides are analyzed and discussed.

Stacked Polymeric Multimode Waveguide Arrays for Two-Dimensional Optical Interconnects

“…If the variation of the coupling loss due to the positional errors of the stacked waveguides is included, the optical loss uniformities will be increased up to 1.9 and 2.2 dB, respectively. Although the optical uniformities of the stacked waveguide arrays are not as good as other methods such as microlenses ( 1.25 dB) [13] and fiber image guiding ( 1 dB) [14], the stacked waveguide arrays have large potential because the optical uniformities can be reduced by the development of stacking process to reduce the positional errors.…”

A novel reconfigurable optical interconnect architecture using an Opto-VLSI processor and a 4-f imaging system

“…Recent reports by both academia and industry have predicted that the electrical interconnect technology will be replaced by optical interconnect technologies for high performance computing in the next decade [1] [5] [10]. Different approaches for signal transmission and distribution have recently been reported, including, polymer waveguides [11]- [12], fiber ribbons [13]- [14], fiber image guides [15]- [16], and free space optical interconnects using lenses and mirror systems [17]- [21].…”

Breaking the memory bottleneck with an optical data path

“…In these systems, the VCSEL and photodiode arrays are flip-chip bonded to CMOS chips using heterogeneous integration techniques. Although Plant's demonstration used bulk optics to deliver light between ICs, the free space optical path for a viable system design could use either a rigid optical link [4] (useful for chip-tochip links on a board), shown in Figure 2(a), or a flexible fiber imaging guide [5,6] (useful for boardto-board or chip-to-chip links), shown in Figure 2(b).…”

“…Typical dimensions are 10 µm core diameter and 12 µm outer diameter for the cladding [6]. With an image spot from an individual laser on the order of 30 µm, the light is coupled into a number of neighboring fibers.…”

“…At the receiver, the beam shape impinging on the detector is approximately a discretized Gaussian distribution, providing excellent coupling into the detector. Practical systems have been constructed by simply butt-coupling the fiber image guides to the laser and detector arrays [6], keeping the implementation complexity (and therefore cost) down relative to systems that require complex coupling optics.…”