High density optical interconnect for borad and Backplane applications using VCSELs and polymer waveguides: the POINT program

[[abstract]]This paper describes the technical approach and progresses of the POINT (Polymer Optical Interconnect Technology) program. This project is a collaborative effort among GE, Honeywell, AMP, AlliedSignal, Columbia University and University of California at San Diego (UCSD), sponsored by DARPA/ETO to develop affordable optoelectronic packaging and interconnect technologies for board and backplane applications. In this paper, we describe the recent development under this program in the following areas: (a) a high density optical interconnect for board and backplane applications using polymer waveguides (Polyguide) to demonstrate high I/O density (100 μm channel spacing) and high speed (~1 Gbps) interconnect with an interconnect distance to 280 mm, (b) a high density and high speed VCSEL array packaging technology that employs planar and batch fabrication processes scaleable to large volume, low-cost manufacturing, (c) passive alignment techniques for reducing the recurrent cost in an optoelectronic assembly, (d) low-loss optical polymers for board and backplane level interconnects, and (e) CAD tools for modeling multimode guided wave systems and assisting optoelectronic packaging mechanical design[[fileno]]2030182030024[[department]]電機工程學