Fully packaged guided-wave and hybrid optical circuits for future photonic backplanes

To meet various technical challenges for optical interconnects for a bandwidth-demanding backplane, we are studying various approaches to construct parallel optical interconnect channels, interfaciable with 2D arrays of VCSEL´s and receivers. We summarize our recent progresses in back-plane level optical parallel interconnect technologies based on guided-wave and hybrid (free-space/guided-wave) packaging methods. A PMMA polymer fiber-image-guide (PFIG) optical 2D parallel interconnect system has been proposed and demonstrated. Both a point-to-point and a more generalized circuit were studied. The underlining system concepts were demonstrated by an embedded prototype board and surface-mounted packaging