Low skew multimode ribbon fibres for parallel optical communication

Interchannel skew in graded index multimode fibre-optic ribbon can be reduced by forming each channel from fibre sequentially cut from the same pull. A 1.25 ps/m maximum variation in optical pulse delay has been measured across a 102 m long 12 fibre ribbon. These improvements extend the applications of multimode ribbon fibre to include low cost synchronous parallel transmission at 622 Mbyte/s over distances greater than 1 km.