CONNECTION CUBE MODULES FOR OPTICAL BACKPLANES AND FIBER NETWORKS

A modular free-space optical system, called the connection cube, for c onnecting arrays of electro-optic transceivers and fiber-array connect ors is presented. The connection cube module provides bidirectional da ta transfer between four processing nodes on a cube face and can be us ed as a basic building block for optical backplanes and interconnect n etworks. An experimental system for connecting four processing nodes i s presented and used to examine alignment and packaging issues. An ana lysis of the dimensional requirements and scaling capability for syste ms based on this module is conducted. This analysis shows that, when t he connection cube module Is adapted to vertical-cavity surface-emitti ng-laser-based point-to-point fiber-array links currently under develo pment, it can connect up to 14 processing nodes with an aggregate data transfer capacity of 112 Gbits/s with 19.6-W power consumption. (C) 1 997 Optical Society of America.