OPTICAL INTERCONNECT TECHNOLOGIES FOR HIGH-PERFORMANCE ELECTRONIC PROCESSOR SYSTEMS

The provision of interconnection is a major concern for designers of high performance electronic processor systems, and electrical technologies are proving increasingly limiting. The application of optical data transmission techniques, developed initially for the telecommunications market, to electronic processor systems offers to overcome these limitations, through increased data rates, low power consumption, compact size and their inherent freedom from the effects of mutual coupling, line capacitance, EMI and topological constraints. This paper explains the choices available to the system designer and describes the current status of the key technologies required for the practical implementation of optical interconnections, namely optical wiring, optical bond pads, component packaging and alignment, and optical protocols.