Recent Progress and Potential Markets for Optical Circuit Boards

Recent trend of optical circuit board, which realizes inter- and intra-board level optical interconnection, was described. Optical circuit board consists of a transmission medium for optical wiring and a substrate. In Japan, flexible optical circuit board using polymer waveguide as a transmission medium has attended much attention for its application to consumer products such as cell phone. The key issues are optical coupling between optical circuit board and optical components, taking mass-productivity into account, and IC chips with low power consumption. The commercialization of the flexible optical circuit board is expected to become a trigger for expanding optical circuit board into many potential fields.