Abstract

The trend in component technology is toward higher data rates and increasing numbers of input/output ports. Silicon VLSI and VHSIC chips may have 50-100 signal pins each operating at data rates up to 50 Mb/s. Gallium arsenide IC's, while of lower complexity, operate at data rates of 1-4 Gb/s. As the data rates and number of I/O ports increases chip, board, and subsystem interconnection becomes increasingly problematical using conventional approaches ( e.g. coaxial cable, twisted wire pairs). Difficulties occur primarily due to wire count, power constraints, and limited channel data capacity. Clearly, an alternative interconnect technology is required in order to implement the high performance systems currently being contemplated for data and signal processing applications.

© 1985 Optical Society of America