One dimensional optical data links

Demands for increased interconnection density and higher bandwidth, coupled with stringent cost constraints of advanced wide bandwidth telecommunication switching and high throughput computer architectures, are exhausting conventional electrical interconnection techniques. The requirement for greater interconnection performance, spawned in part by the advances in integrated circuit technologies and the need for enhanced digital services (such as multi media), dictate that technology advancement must occur in traditional electronic packaging and/or interconnection schemes. Presently a “bottle-neck” occurs at the board-to-board level of the interconnection hierarchy. Therefore, an opportunity exists for the development of new parallel optical interconnection techniques which can be incorporated into system designs beginning at this interconnection level and beyond