Display glass for low-loss and high-density optical interconnects in electro-optical circuit boards with eight optical layers.

Parallel optical interconnects on-board level requires low propagation loss in wavelength range between 850 and 1550 nm to be compatible with datacom and telecom optical engines. For highest integration density tight waveguide bends and a scalable number of optical layers should be manufacturable for 2D interfaces to optical fiber array connectors and photonic assembly I/O's. We developed a glass waveguide panel process for double-sided processing of commercial available display glass by applying a two-step thermal ion-exchange process for low-loss multi-mode graded-index waveguides. Multiple glass waveguide panels can be embedded between electrical layers. The generic concept enables fabrication of high-density integration (HDI) electro-optical circuit boards (EOCB) with high number of optical and electrical layers. Waveguides with high NA of 0.3 for low bend losses could be achieved in glass with propagation loss of 0.05 dB/cm for all key wavelengths. Four of those glass waveguide panels were embedded in an EOCB demonstrator with size of 280 x 233 mm² providing eight optical layers with 96 channels in an area of 2.8 x 1.5 mm². To the best of our knowledge it's the highest number of layers that has ever been demonstrated for an EOCB.