Technology Demonstrator of an Optical Board-to- Board

Compared with electrical interconnects, optical interconnects offer several advantages, such as higher channel bandwidth and density, longer reach, and insensitivity to electro-magnetic interference. We developed an optical printed circuit board (PCB) technology platform and demonstrate a 12 × 10 Gbps optical link between boards. Embedded polymer waveguides guide the optical signals, which are generated and detected by 12-channel optoelectronic modules. A polymer waveguide flex is used as optical link between boards. All connections between elements are based on passively aligned, standard MT interfaces, keeping costs low and providing compatibility with parallel fiber optics. The technology is also compatible with standard PCB processes. Optical Interconnects The increasing performance of microprocessors leads to higher bandwidth requirements for the data flow to and from the processor. Today, all signaling on a PCB is performed electrically, using copper lines that are integrated in the board. However, issues such as propagation loss and interchannel crosstalk, limit the scalability of electrical interconnects to ever higher bandwidth densities. A possible solution for these issues i