Free Space Optical Interconnect (FSOI) modules for short range data transfer applied to board to board high rate communication

摘要

To provide more flexibility in inter-board communication in blade chassis, we developed a Free Space Optical Interconnect (FSOI) system for short range high speed data transfer. We designed robust and low footprint components compliant with both a use in milaero environment and an operation up to 5 and 10 Gbps. The 5Gpbs configuration demonstrated large tolerance to misalignment between emitter and receiver modules: +1.5/-1 mm along optical axis, lateral tolerance of+/-1 mm and angular tolerances of +/-1.5°. Reliable performances have been demonstrated over a temperature range from -30°C to 80°C and constraint environment as thermal and damp heat cycles and vibrations. Increase the data rate of the FSO device one step beyond up to 10 Gbps requires dealing with mode partitioning troubles generated by the use of VCSEL lasers. We designed and evaluated an improved opto-mechanical combination to overcome this drawback. The resulting device shows error free 10 Gbps data transfer while keeping large tolerance to Tx/Rx misalignments.