8×8 parallel-channeled optical interconnect systems operating at 1 Gbits/s per channel were designed and developed using complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits driven 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays and the corresponding photodetector arrays. Low operating threshold and voltage were adapted and facilitated in the design and fabrication of VCSELs and photodetectors in order to achieve the low-power consumption for the entire system. The driver and receiver circuits were fabricated on transparent sapphire substrates using 0.5-μm ultra-thin silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) technology and subsequently flip-chip bonded with corresponding VCSEL and photodetector arrays. The VCSEL transmitter and photoreceiver arrays were biased at 3.3 V and optically coupled in a free-space configuration using compound lens systems. Data communications at bandwidth up to 1.0 Gb/s for each single channel were characterized. Bit-error-rate (BER) was measured to be better than 10^-9 from the eye diagrams. Such interconnect systems were also demonstrated for optical data processing using diffractive optical elements.

Date Published: 14 August 2003
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 5246, Active and Passive Optical Components for WDM Communications III, (14 August 2003); doi: 10.1117/12.512979

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5246:
Active and Passive Optical Components for WDM Communications III
Achyut K. Dutta; Abdul Ahad S. Awwal; Niloy K. Dutta; Kazuo Fujiura, Editor(s)