Novel Programmable Optical Interconnects for Optoelectronic Packaging

Optical interconnects are required, for high speed opto-electronic packaged computing systems for fast image data processing for missile interception and target identification. They are also useful for fast access to large intelligent database. However,low cost polymer waveguide optical intercornnects and other waveguide interconnect lines suffer from packaging difficulty of waveguide interconnect lines with opto-electronic transmitters and receivers. It is difficult to perform optical alignment duringthe packaging since the transmitters and receivers have not yet been turned on electrically to monitor their optical aligments with the interconnection waveguides. After the packaging, optical alignment errors can not be easily corrected. New SpanOpto-Technology Inc. proposes a novel programmable optical interconnect concept with its feasibility demonstrated in Phase I. It facilitates dynamic optical alignment of packaged opto-electronic chips and waveguides by laser writing of waveguides toconnect the existing waveguides to the laser transmitters and photodetector receivers. This completes the dynamic optical alignment without physically moving packaged chips and waveguide components. The waveguide erasure and rewriting feature alsofacilitates interconnect line reconfiguration. The dynamic optical alignment is comparable to conventional wire bonding in terms of packaging flexibility. This Phase II will realize an opto-electronic packaging machine and an interconnect prototype.