DISTRIBUTED OPTICAL-DATA BUS FOR BOARD-LEVEL INTERCONNECTS

A design for a distributed free-space optical system is presented that provides interconnection of electronic processing elements at the boa rd level of packaging. The system can be expanded to more than two boa rds and transfers an array of data in parallel between connection plan es. The design uses binary optic microlens arrays to collimate and col lect light from surface-emitting lasers, and it uses substrate-mode ho lographic window elements for directing light to and from the bus regi on. The use of a collection lens array for extending the alignment tol erance of the imaging system is also discussed. The paper concludes wi th experimental demonstrations of critical system components and perfo rmance with 64-bit data arrays.