Planar-integrated free-space optics for interchip interconnects

In this paper, we present the use of three-dimensional planar-integrated free-space optics as an interconnection technique. This 3-D optics offers the potential to enter or remove many signals in parallel to/from a chip. This can solve one of the fundamental problems of electronic (actually, of any 2-D) interconnects. Furthermore, using specific components, signal fan-out can be rather easily implemented in contrast to other approaches.