Multi-gigabit optical interconnects for next-generation on-board digital equipment

Abstract

Parallel optical interconnects are experimentally assessed as a technology that may offer the highthroughput data communication capabilities required to the next-generation on-board digital processing units. An optical backplane interconnect was breadboarded, on the basis of a digital transparent processor that provides flexible connectivity and variable bandwidth in telecom missions with multi-beam antenna coverage. The unit selected for the demonstration required that more than tens of Gbit/s be supported by the backplane. The demonstration made use of commercial parallel optical link modules at 850 nm wavelength, with 12 channels running at up to 2.5 Gbit/s. A flexible optical fibre circuit was developed so as to route board-to-board connections. It was plugged to the optical transmitter and receiver modules through 12-fibre MPO connectors. BER below 10 -14 and optical link budgets in excess of 12 dB were measured, which would enable to integrate broadcasting. Integration of the optical backplane interconnect was successfully demonstrated by validating the overall digital processor functionality.

Optical interconnect evaluation process for Thales Alenia Space latest generation of Digital Transparent Processor, DTP6G, and a projection into future needs

“…To keep up with the demand for increasing processor capacity, disruptive technologies have been introduced for each DTP generations. Since DTP5G, high-speed electrical interconnects have been replaced by optical interconnects [1,2,3,4]. On DTP5G, optical transceivers working at high speed data rate higher than 10 Gbps were introduced after a selection and qualification process [5,6,8].…”