Packaging of 1.3 Tb/s Full Duplex Optical Interconnect

Abstract

The electro-optical packaging process of an optical interconnect device is described. The device has an aggregate full duplex bandwidth of 1.3 Tb/s. The optical interconnect is assembled from a standard printed-circuit-board (PCB), an optical module chip (icPhotonics™ module) and a large format fiber-bundle. The icPhotonics™ module is assembled from an organic substrate, an Application-Specific-Integrated-Circuit (ASIC) die, vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) matrix, Photo-diode (PD) matrix and 2 micro-lens-arrays (MLA's). The data is transmitted to and from a specially designed fiber-bundle through a second set of MLA's. Each optical device consists of a 12 × 14 matrix array, where each link transmits and receives in 8 Gb/s – totaling to a 1.344 Tb/s full duplex in each optical interconnect module and a bandwidth density of 64Gb/s/mm2 The icPhotonics™ module packaging is performed using five different flip-chip and reflow or glue steps – thus maximizing module density. The optical fiber-bundle assembly is performed after the PCB is populated, and completes a full optical-interconnect. Reliability studies had been performed successfully for the entire assembly. The optical-interconnect PCB's are routinely fabricated in a small series production scale and used as a crucial building block in Compass-EOS core-router system, creating a full mesh optical link between different line-cards and racks