High-bandwidth low-power parallel optical interconnect using imaging fiber bundles and standard CMOS detectors

We present a high-bandwidth parallel optical link that operates from CMOS chip to CMOS chip, for applications like chip-to-chip, board-to-board and rack-to-rack interconnects. The optical channel is an oversampling imaging fiber bundle of 1.9 mm diameter. The light sources are a 10 X 10 2D array of high-speed, high-efficiency light-emitting diodes, design for flip-chip mounting onto CMOS driver circuits. Detectors and receivers are integrated together in standard CMOS, as an array of 10 X 10 detector/receiver cells.