Array waveguide evanescent ribbon coupler for card-to-backplane optical interconnects

Abstract

A flexible array waveguide evanescent coupler for card-to-backplane optical interconnects is presented. The proposed technique eliminates traditional 90 degrees out-of-plane turns and local waveguide termination of multidrop bus architectures that hinder conventional card-to-backplane optical interconnections. Evanescent coupling between array waveguide ribbons has been successfully demonstrated. Further experiments have been performed to quantify array waveguide coupling length versus transfer efficiency and waveguide misalignment tolerance. Preliminary optical interconnect testing has demonstrated 2.5GHz operation of the coupler ribbons. The successful high-speed coupling confirms the effectiveness of the proposed method for high-speed computing systems.