Fully differential optical interconnects for high-speed digital systems

A fully differential optical link for board-to-board and onboard interconnections within digital systems is proposed and evaluated. The unique features of this link are that it transmits uncoded signals and the link receiver can be, at least in principle, fully DC-coupled, to produce a low-latency, high-bandwidth parallel synchronous interconnection. Both theory and link simulations show that a fully differential link has essentially the same SNR as a comparable single-ended link, but the differential system is less susceptible to the common-mode noise such as the switching noise generated at the transmitter or at the receiver input