Technology - Reflex Photonics Inc.

Over the past 20 years, the demand for high speed data transmission has increased rapidly. Digital communications technologies have altered how consumers and corporations alike communicate, retrieve information, transfer data, make purchases or take advantage of digital media offerings and related interactive products/services. As a result of this continued increase in demand, the operational speed of communication systems, high performance computers and servers have also been, and will be increasing. Designers are now looking to optical interconnections to keep up with the increasing speed demands within shorter distance applications.

The operating frequency of a CPU has increased from MHz to GHz and by extrapolating Moore’s law, microprocessors are expected to be clocked at about 10 GHz within a few years. Consequently, it is becoming extremely difficult to route enough bandwidth through a standard printed circuit board using the existing electrical wires and standard signaling schemes.

High-speed short-distance optical interconnects have several advantages over copper interconnects. Optical interconnects offer a low-loss interconnect with a large transmission bandwidth, they are inherently immunity to Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI), they offer immunity from crosstalk, they offer superior routing density and lower power consumption.

In the area of high speed data transmission (>2.5 Gb/s) and supportive component packaging, the limitations of copper as a transmission media, especially encased in FR4 printed circuit board laminated material, are evident. These limitations are pointing towards fiber optics and the inherent speed advantages of light, in future design trends towards ultra high speed data transmission. Optical transmission will be the definitive solution to certain printed circuit board connectivity where it will become virtually/practically impossible to route enough bandwidth through a backplane, circuit board or module. In addition, in large scaled scenarios, it will become too unwieldy to distribute signal wiring and synchronized clock signals without the use of optical pathways.

Reflex will be able to address 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 printed circuit boards using the same fundamental technology. In terms of its system-to-system optical links or Very Short Reach (VSR) solutions, Reflex Photonics offers a line of parallel optical interconnect products that are superior in performance and robustness at a considerably reduced cost. For chip-to-chip or Ultra Short Reach (USR) interconnect solution, Reflex again offers superior performance but also provides a revolutionary method to interconnect chips optically on PCBs without disrupting current manufacturing methodologies that use standard integrated circuit packaging and standard FR-4 printed circuit boards.

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:

Encapsulated package, which increases reliability.
Higher coupling efficiency, which 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 which have both electrical and optical Inputs/Outputs. These semiconductor packages will revolutionize the way processors and high-performance chips communicate by using fiber ribbon cables and optical waveguides to transmit signals across and within standard printed circuit boards.