Optical Interconnect System Integration for Ultra-Short-Reach Applications

It is predicted that the increase in microprocessor clock frequency will create bandwidth limitations for copper interconnects on Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) due to signal attenuation, Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) and crosstalk [1]. Optical interconnects could be a viable solution to these problems. This paper explores the potential and challenges for optical interconnects in UltraShort-Reach (USR), <10 m, applications. We discuss two designs for implementing high-performance and costeffective optical interconnect solutions. The first architecture uses the Silicon Optical Bench (SiOB) approach and is primarily focused on the board-to-board and rack-to-rack solutions. The second architecture implements hybrid integration on a standard microprocessor package in order to address issues in chipto-chip data transmission. Using the latter method we demonstrate a 3 Gb/s optical eye for the transmitter and 1 Gb/s error-free transmission.