Technology and White Papers

Over the past 20 years, digital communications technologies have altered how consumers and corporations communicate, retrieve information, transfer data, make purchases or take advantage of digital media offerings and related interactive products and services. As a result, the demand for high-speed data transmission has rapidly increased, along with the operational speed of communication systems, high performance computers and servers.

Optical Interconnects

High-speed, short-distance optical interconnects have several advantages over traditional copper interconnects. Optical interconnects offer a low-loss interconnect with a large transmission bandwidth, are inherently immune to Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI), and offer alternative routing strategies such as broadcasting, while performing with lower overall power consumption.

In the area of high-speed data transmission (>10 Gbps) and supportive component packaging, the limitations of copper as a transmission media related to the absorption and dispersion of the energy in the FR4 PCB material, are evident. These limitations point towards fiber optics and the inherent speed and latency advantages of light in future design trends for ultra high-speed data transmissions. Optical transmissions will be the definitive solution to certain PCB connectivity issues where it will become virtually impossible to route enough bandwidth through a backplane, circuit board or module. In addition, in large-scale scenarios, it will become too unwieldy to distribute signal wiring and synchronized clock signals without the use of optical pathways.

Reflex Photonics Technology

Reflex Photonics addresses both the bandwidth and latency issues of high-speed interconnects between systems, as well as the substantially different technical issues related to the bandwidth and latency between chips on PCBs using the same fundamental technology. To address system-to-system optical links or Very Short Reach (VSR) solutions, Reflex Photonics offers a line of parallel optical interconnect modules and active optical cables (AOCs) that are superior in performance and robustness at a considerably reduced cost. For “chip package-to-chip package” and “fiber-to-the-chip package” (also known as Ultra Short Reach (USR) interconnect solutions), Reflex again offers superior performance along with a revolutionary method to interconnect chips optically on PCBs without disrupting current manufacturing methodologies that use standard IC packaging and standard FR-4 PCBs.

Reflex Photonics has developed an innovative optical packaging technology, trademarked LightABLE™, which is suitable for both VSR and USR interconnections.

This technology has several attributes as it offers:

• A sealed optical package that increases reliability
• Higher coupling efficiency reduces power consumption and improves optical link budgets
• Inherently reduced Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) and signal distortion due to planarity
• Passive un-powered alignment for cost reductions and efficiency

This technology is the basis for the supply of optically-enabled Light On Board® hybrid IC packaging solutions that have both electrical and optical I/Os. These semiconductor packages will revolutionize the way processors and high-performance components communicate by using fiber ribbon cables and optical waveguides to transmit signals across and within standard PCBs.

Reflex Photonics - White Papers, Presentations and Application Notes