Polymer-based optical interconnect technology: a route to low-cost optoelectronic packaging and interconnect

Recent advances in optical devices, polymeric materials, and in the electronic MCM packaging and interconnect technologies could bring the cost of optical interconnect to a level affordable for module, board, and backplane level interconnect applications. Specifically, we discuss how the development in (1) vertical-cavity surface-emitting-laser devices, (2) multichip module packaging technologies, (3) optical polymers, and (4) adaptive interconnect can be applied to benefit optoelectronic packaging and interconnect. We show how these advancements will allow widely used planar processes and the already developed packaging technology in electronics to be applicable to optoelectronic packaging to reduce both recurring and nonrecurring engineering costs for this new technology insertion into computers and advanced electronic systems.