Configuration of an optical waveguide interconnect mesh network based on EOPCB

Abstract

An optical waveguide interconnect mesh network scheme for parallel multiprocessor systems based on an electro-optical printed circuit board (EOPCB) with multimode polymer waveguide is proposed. The system consists of 22 processor element chips interconnected in a mesh network configuration. An additional layer with optical waveguide structure is embedded in a conventional printed circuit board to construct the EOPCB. Vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL)/positive intrinsic-negative (PIN) arrays are applied as the optical transmitters/receivers. Three 112 VCSEL/PIN parallel optical transmitting/receiving modules are used to provide 32 input/output optical channels required by the 22 chip-to-chip optical mesh interconnect system. The data rate in each optical channel is 3.125 Gbps and thus 10 Gbps parallel optical interconnect link for each direction of a chip is obtained. The optical signals from a processor element chip can be transmitted to another chip through optical waveguide interconnect embedded in the board. Thus the optical interconnect mesh network for parallel multiprocessor system can be implemented.