Low cost board level optical interconnection using polyimide waveguide film

Abstract

A low cost intra-board level optical interconnection was developed using a fluorinated polyimide waveguide film and conventional printed wiring board (PWB). We proposed that the edges of the multi-mode waveguide film with the core size of about 90um width and 20um height coupled directly to a commercialized 850nm multi-mode vertical-cavity-surface-emitting-laser (VCSEL) and photodiode (PD) by the developed passive alignment technique using an appropriate adhesive. Then the VCSEL and PD connected by the waveguide film were mounted on a PWB, bending the waveguide film. This technique was very simple and low cost technique. The total loss of two coupling was obtained to be about 3dB. The data rate higher than 1Gbps was transmitted using the PWB with the optical interconnection.