Optical interconnects replace hardwire: Light promises to relieve bottlenecks in electric interconnections from cabinet to cabinet, board to board, IC to IC — and even within chips

Abstract

The limitations of electrical connectors as the geometries of very large-scale integrated (VLSI) chips grow smaller and denser, is discussed. The use instead of optical interconnects which offer the combination of large bandwidth and large fanout needed by real-time systems with high throughput when exchanging signals among components in both numeric and symbolic applications, is examined. The benefits of optical connections are outlined, and the problem of alignment, which primarily forms the stringent packaging and fabrication demands, is considered. The potential of optical interconnects for monolithic high-speed GaAs circuits, and for dynamic reconfiguration of board-to-board and equipment-to-equipment connection, is discussed.