A Monolithic Integrated On-Chip Optical Interconnect Bus Based on Electrically Switchable Bragg Gratings in Polymer Waveguides

Realizing the fact that integration of photonics devices on-chip avoids many of bottlenecks associated with current system architectures while adding new functionalities, Crystal Research, Inc. proposes to develop an on-chip optical waveguide interconnectbus for dynamically-reconfigurable data transmissions at rates exceeding 10 gigabits per second. The proposed architecture employs advanced polymer waveguide circuits and innovative electro-optic switchable gratings. Similar to electrical interconnectionbuses, where control and data signals can be relayed between senders (for example, processors) and receivers (for example, memories), the optical interconnect bus based on switched polymer waveguides is capable of providing the optical equivalent of anelectronic bus line driver. In other words, for the first time on-chip high-speed signals (10 gigabits per second) can be reconfigured and transmitted to many receivers with a switching speed of 50 ¿s, which is 100 times faster compared tostate-of-the-art MEMS switching technologies. Furthermore, broadcasting of high-speed clock signals can be easily achieved through waveguide fanout circuits. We will design, fabricate, and perform experimental validation of optical interconnect devicesfor military satellite applications. The Phase II delivering prototype will show its superior performance compared to existing wire-based off-modules for satellite data communications.