Limitations to and solutions for optical loss in optical backplanes

In this paper, recent literature on the discussion on high-speed backplanes with optical, electrical, and mixed solutions, as well as on polymer-waveguide systems suitable for implementation on printed circuit boards (PCBs), is reviewed from the point of view of their optical losses. The reevaluation of the optical power budget for realistic high-speed optical polymer-waveguide links on backplanes showed that signal amplification is necessary to boost the signal, which resulted in an additional literature review on advances in optical amplifiers based on silicon bench technology available. Finally, a concept study of an active optical waveguide amplifier device, based on planar optical waveguide amplifiers and semiconductor optical amplifiers, was performed. The amplification device can be flip-chip mounted on the backplane to compensate for optical losses due to signal routing, which increases the overall degree of freedom in waveguide routing on high-density interconnects for backplanes. The hybrid concept design guarantees compatibility with the processes of the PCB industry. © 2006 IEEE.