We report on the design, the fabrication, the characterization and the demonstration of a scalable multi- channel free-space interconnection components with the potential for Tb/x.cm² aggregate bit rate capacity over inter-chip interconnection distances. The demonstrator components are fabricated in a high quality optical plastic, PMMA, using an ion-based rapid prototyping technology that we call deep proton lithography. With the presently achieved Gigabit/s data rates for each of the individual 16 channels with a BER smaller than 10^-13 and with inter-channel cross-talk lower than -22dB the module aims at optically interconnecting 2-D opto-electronic VCSEL and receiver arrays, flip-chip mounted on CMOS circuitry. Furthermore, using ray-tracing software and radiometric simulation tools, we perform a sensitivity analysis fo misalignment and fabrication errors on these plastic micro- optical modules and we study industrial fabrication and material issues related to the mass-replication of these components through injection-molding techniques. Finally we provide evidence that these components can be mass- fabricated in dedicated, highly-advanced optical plastics at low cost and with the required precision.

Date Published: 29 November 2000
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 4114, Photonic Devices and Algorithms for Computing II, (29 November 2000); doi: 10.1117/12.408545

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4114:
Photonic Devices and Algorithms for Computing II
Khan M. Iftekharuddin; Abdul Ahad Sami Awwal, Editor(s)