FPGA-board and active optical cable design for optical multi-gigabit communication

Integration of high speed electronics and micro-optics allows ultra-wide band optical transmission. The project presented in this paper combines the versatility and high performance of modern FPGA chips equipped with high speed transceivers, high speed PCB design for multi-channel systems and the advantages of optical transmission systems, like better signal to noise ratio, lower attenuation, lower crosstalk, higher bandwidth and smaller sized interconnects compared to current electrical transmission systems.