Market drivers and architectural requirements for backplane inter-connect capacities in Next Generation PON Head-End equipment in the Access Network

Pitwon³

et al. 2015

SPIE Proceedings

Self Cite

Optical interconnects for data transmission at board level offer increased energy efficiency, system density, and bandwidth scalability compared to purely copper driven systems. We present recent results on manufacturing of electrooptical printed circuit board (PCB) with integrated planar glass waveguides. The graded index multi-mode waveguides are patterned inside commercially available thin-glass panels by performing a specific ion-exchange process. The glass waveguide panel is embedded within the layer stack-up of a PCB using proven industrial processes. This paper describes the design, manufacture, assembly and characterization of the first electro-optical backplane demonstrator based on integrated planar glass waveguides. The electro-optical backplane in question is created by laminating the glass waveguide panel into a conventional multi-layer electronic printed circuit board stack-up. High precision ferrule mounts are automatically assembled, which will enable MT compliant connectors to be plugged accurately to the embedded waveguide interfaces on the glass panel edges. The demonstration platform comprises a standardized sub-rack chassis and five pluggable test cards each housing optical engines and pluggable optical connectors. The test cards support a variety of different data interfaces and can support data rates of up to 32 Gb/s per channel

Section: Electro-optical Backplane Designmentioning

confidence: 98%

Electro-optical backplane demonstrator with integrated multimode gradient-index thin glass waveguide panel

Schröder¹,

Pitwon³

et al. 2015

SPIE Proceedings

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“…Glass foil panels with thicknesses as low as 30 μm are commercially available in large PCB form factors [13]. A glass waveguide fabrication process has been developed targetting panel sizes of 210 × 297 mm 2 , though it will be technically feasible to scale waveguide panel sizes up in future.…”

Section: B Glass Waveguide Fabrication Process Flowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pluggable Electro-Optical Circuit Board Interconnect Based on Embedded Graded-Index Planar Glass Waveguides

Pitwon

Schröder

et al. 2015

J. Lightwave Technol.

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Widespread adoption of electro-optical circuit boards based on embedded glass waveguide technology would enable seamless optical connectivity from external fiber-optic networks to system embedded optical interconnect architectures. In this paper, we report on the fabrication of planar multimode waveguides within thin glass foils based on a two-step thermal ion exchange process. Novel lamination techniques were developed to allow glass waveguide panels to be reliably integrated into a conventional electronic multilayer printed circuit board. In addition, a complete suite of optical connector technologies were developed to enable both direct fiber-to-board and board-to-board connectivity. We present the design, development, and characterization of a fully integrated connection platform, comprising a 281 × 233 mm 2 multilayer electro-optical backplane with integrated planar glass waveguides, a pluggable connector system, and five pluggable test cards. Both on-card and externally generated 850 and 1310-nm optical test data were conveyed through the connector and waveguide system and characterised for in-system and system-to-system optical connectivity at data rates up to 32 Gb/s per channel exhibiting bit error rates of less than 10 −12 .

Electro-optical backplane demonstrator with gradient-index multimode glass waveguides for board-to-board interconnection

2014 IEEE 64th Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC)

Schröder

Pitwon³

et al. 2014

First time an electro-optical circuit board (EOCB) is demonstrated with integrated planar glass multimode waveguides and with optical pluggable line card connectors. The waveguides are patterned inside commercially available thin-glass panels by performing a two-step thermal ion-exchange process. The resulting low-loss multimode waveguides possess a gradient-index profile. The glass waveguide panel is embedded within the layer stack-up of a printed circuit board (PCB) using proven industrial processes. Cut-outs inside the PCB are structured for assembling a pluggable optical connector and receptacle system for connecting optical fiber based waveguides on the line cards to integrated optical waveguides in the backplane. The demonstration platform comprises a standardized sub-rack chassis and five pluggable test cards with pluggable optical connectors and designed for housing optical engines. The test cards support a variety of different data interfaces for bidirectional signal integrity measurements. The evaluated demonstrator system performed with bit error free data transmission at 10.3 Gb/s for the tested wavelengths of 850 and 1310 nm