Abstract

Optical interconnects have been touted for many years as a way to achieve dense, interference free, high speed interconnects from box to box, board to board and chip to chip. However, optical interconnects based upon integrated laser/detector arrays have not yet achieved widespread commercial application. There are probably three key reasons for this: 1) developers of parallel optical interconnects are still struggling with the best packaging approaches, 2) the telecom market crash occurred at a critical point in time for the ramp-up of parallel optical interconnects, and 3) some early reliability problems made it more difficult for users to adopt a new technology and displace copper solutions.

© 2003 Optical Society of America