Board and chip level optical interconnection technologies are being seriously considered and urgently developed for deployment as is evident by the extensive efforts underway worldwide to resolve major issues associated with evolving practical optical interconnect solutions. These issues include but are not limited to cost, overall optical performance, reliability and lifetime, connectivity and configuration options, and production scale up. The primary drivers are performance issues related to electronic circuits with signal propagation moving to 20 GHz where high frequency performance and cost for copper based electronics is increasingly compromising to maintain signal fidelity for high speed computing in particular. Industry goals of 40 GHz and on to 100 GHz are being actively pursued further driving the need for practical optical interconnectivity. Power consumption and heat dissipation particularly with the increasingly high density I/O at the board/chip level are major issues being addressed through optics. Additionally photonic interconnections are enabling for separating system component or segments and removing electronic design constraints for enhanced performance and resolution of size, weight and power concerns through distributed architecture options. Aerospace and military related optical interconnect applications are also being driven by the impact of electromagnetic interference (EMI) issues exacerbated by the shift to composite material for airframe bodies.
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