Proceedings Article | 22 September 1997
Proc. SPIE. 3135, Precision Plastic Optics for Optical Storage, Displays, Imaging, and Communications
KEYWORDS: Optical fibers, GRIN lenses, Wavelength division multiplexing, Micromirrors, Connectors, Local area networks, Optical computing, Nonimaging optics, Standards development, Phase only filters
In this paper, we investigate the application of precision plastic optics into a communication/computer sub-system, such as a hybrid computer motherboard. We believe that using optical waveguides for next-generation computer motherboards can provide a high performance alternative for present multi-layer printed circuit motherboards. In response to this demand, we suggest our novel concept of a hybrid motherboard based on an internal-fiber-coupling (IFC) wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) optical backplane. The IFC/WDM backplane provides dedicated Tx/Rx connections, and applies low-cost, high-performance components, including CD LDs, GRIN plastic fibers, molding housing, and nonimaging optics connectors. Preliminary motherboard parameters are: speed 100 MHz/100 m, or 1 GHz/10 m; fiber loss approximately 0.01 dB/m; almost zero fan-out/fan-in optical power loss, and eight standard wavelength channels. The proposed hybrid computer motherboard, based on innovative optical backplane technology, should solve low-speed, low-parallelism bottlenecks in present electric computer motherboards.
