10 Tb/s scale optical interconnection system using high-density optical wiring

The bandwidth of information and communication technology (ICT) systems is increasing and is predicted to reach 10 Tb/s and over. However, an electrical interconnect cannot achieve such bandwidth because of its density limits. To solve this problem, we propose a high-density optical backplane, which consists of a fiber cassette and eleven optical backplane connectors. The fiber cassette accommodates 768 optical fibers. The backplane connector housing can mount eight 48-fiber mechanically transferable (MT)-ferrules. Optical backplane is 89 mm wide and 13 mm thick; therefore, equipment can secure a sufficient area for cooling while achieving a 9.6-Tb/s aggregate bandwidth. It also eases assembly and testing. The insertion loss of the backplane including the two connectors results in 1 dB or less. We demonstrated an optical interconnection system using the optical backplane, which exhibited error-free transmission between boards up to 25.8 Gb/s. We also propose an optical connector using lensed ferrules instead of MT-ferrules. Due to the introduction of the lensed ferrules, the spring force of the connector can be reduced to 1/5 that with an MT-ferrule. The optical connector can be mounted in the front panel of ICT system equipment. These optical wiring components enable the development of ICT systems with bandwidth exceeding 10 Tb/s.