A novel reconfigurable optical interconnect architecture using an Opto-VLSI processor and a 4-f imaging system

Abstract

A novel reconfigurable optical interconnect architecture for on-board high-speed data transmission is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The interconnect architecture is based on the use of an Opto-VLSI processor in conjunction with a 4-f imaging system to achieve reconfigurable chip-to-chip or board-to-board data communications. By reconfiguring the phase hologram of an Opto-VLSI processor, optical data generated by a vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) associated to a chip (or a board) is arbitrarily steered to the photodetector associated to another chip (or another board). Experimental results show that the optical interconnect losses range from 5.8dB to 9.6dB, and that the maximum crosstalk level is below -36dB. The proposed architecture is tested for high-speed data transmission, and measured eye diagrams display good eye opening for data rate of up to 10Gb/s.