SLC-Based Optical Interconnect for Computing Systems

The performance increase of computing systems is hindered by the power dissipated by the system. Multi-core systems enable the performance increase under such power-constrained environment with high-level interconnection of power-efficient processing elements. High-density and high-bandwidth interconnects are crucial for such systems, and optical interconnects promise to provide the required features, such as data rate, channel density, power dissipation. In this paper, we have demonstrated a high-density, chip-based optical interconnect exploiting a waveguide-integrated surface laminar circuit (SLC) board. A build-up polymer waveguide layer is formed on a SLC, and optical and electrical chips constructing optical interconnects are flip-chip mounted on the SLC much like low-cost electrical packaging using printed circuit boards. Assembled optical interconnect transmitter and receiver have demonstrated 10 Gbps operations.