In this paper, we present a new packaging architecture for chip-level optical interconnections based on imaging fiber bundles. Imaging fiber bundles consist of densely packed arrays of small core fibers such that an object imaged at one end of the bundle is correspondingly imaged on the opposite end. In optical communication applications fiber bundles can be directly coupled to an array of optical sources. Each spot is carried by multiple fibers that in turn can directly illuminate each element in a detector array. Neither end requires any additional optical elements. Thus, imaging fiber bundles are capable of supporting the spatial parallelism of free space interconnects with relaxed alignment and geometry constraints. This paper is focused specifically on multi-chip system designs.
Donald M. Chiarulli, Steven P. Levitan