Single-mode glass waveguide platform for DWDM chip-to-chip interconnects

Abstract

Due to high bandwidth potential, optical single-mode signal transmission is superior to electrical as well as optical multimode signal transmission. For years, optical single-mode fiber cables have been used in telecommunication networks. However, there is a lack of photonic system integration based on optical single-mode interconnects in printed circuit boards and modules for signal transmission between electro-optical components and optical fibers. Therefore, a thin glass-based photonic integration concept for single-mode signal transmission was developed. Optical waveguides and optical free space interconnects are integrated in a single or a stack of thin glass sheets for module and printed circuit board packaging. For light routing inside a thin glass sheet, a singlemode waveguide technology on wafer level (150 mm) was developed promising for scaling up on panel size (45 × 60 cm2). The waveguides show single-mode behavior, low propagation (0.05 dB/cm) and fiber coupling (- 0.3 dB) losses at wavelength of 1550 nm. Different waveguide structures such as 180°-bends, S-bends, splitters and crosses have been integrated in thin glass and characterized in detail. Coupling mechanism and misalignment loss has also been studied. Technologies for fiber laser joining on glass as well as laser structuring of an optical mirror are introduced and first results are presented. Generic module and board-based photonic packaging solutions can be put into practice by applying all introduced technologies and will be demonstrated for a chip-to-fiber module package platform

Hybrid silicon-photonic network-on-chip for future generations of high-performance many-core systems

“…Thus, cutting these wavelengths from the available spectrum to be used for control, would not degrade the system bandwidth. These five wavelengths will be negligible especially when Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) is used providing up to 128 wavelengths per waveguide [52]. The wavelength assignment for each port is shown in Table 2.…”

SiN-assisted flip-chip adiabatic coupler between SiPh and Glass OPCBs

“…To fully exploit their potential however, efficient light coupling solutions are required, especially with Silicon photonics integrated components, which are favored by the industry for commercial exploitation due to their unparalleled small foot-print attributes and their compatibility with Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology that allows for cost-effective large-scale production. In order to overcome this prominent technological barrier, a variety of out of plane coupling schemes have already been proposed, including integrated mirrors and diffraction gratings, suffering however from fabrication-assembly difficulties, bandwidth limitations and high coupling losses [3] [4].…”

Rotative printing processes for polymer waveguide manufacturing

“…Nevertheless, cost-efficient production of meso-scale waveguides is inevitable to enable optical interconnects on the printed circuit board (PCB) level [1]. Predominant waveguide manufacturing technologies on PCB level are lithographically implemented in polymers [2][3][4] or glass-based by changing the refractive index with ion exchange [5][6][7][8]. These technologies can achieve low optical transmission losses; however, such technologies struggle with application challenges such as optical coupling, electro-optical alignment, packaging, thermal stability and mechanical requirements of PCBs [9][10][11].…”