ABSTRACT

N.K. DUTTA*, B.F. LEVINE, D. VAKHSHOORI, K.Y. TU, J.D. WYNN and R.E. LEIBENGUTH

1. In tro d u c tio n .................................................................................... 149 2. Optical Devices and A rray s ............................................................ 151

2.1. VCSEL A r r a y s ............................................................................ 151 2.2. Photodiode Arrays .................................................................... 154

3. Receiver E lectronics........................................................................ 155 3.1. CMOS Based C irc u its ................................................................ 155 3.2. GaAs MESFET Based Optoelectronic C ircuits........................ 161

4. Transmitter Electronics ................................................................ 163 4.1. CMOS Based C irc u its ................................................................ 166 4.2. GaAs MESFET Based C i r c u i t s ................................................ 167

5. Packaged S u b sy stem s.................................................................... 168 6. System A pplications........................................................................ 171

6.1. System Issues and Trade-O ffs................................................... 172 R eferences........................................................................................ 173

1 INTRODUCTION

Optical interconnection is an important technology for current and future computing systems and large switching systems [1-18]. As the clock speed increases (see Figure 1), interconnection between processors for a large cluster of workstations becomes increasingly difficult with conventional coax cables. Fiber optic transmission is an important alternative for such systems and is currently implemented in very large systems. Using parallel fiber optic links, high speed data transmission can be achieved with low electromagnetic radiation induced crosstalk, low skew and low noise [3,4].