Modeling of Optical Interconnections for Data Transmission within High-Speed Electronic Systems

Abstract

The replacement of electrical interconnects within high-speed electronic systems by optical interconnects is merely a matter of time since the bandwith of the electrical interconnection technology for printed circuit board application is limited significantly through physical effects like skin effect, dispersion, radiation of and sensitivity against electromagnetic radiation. An optical interconnection technology provides the potential to set off the most important disadvantages of electrical interconnects. In this paper an approach for modeling and simulating the signal propagation within highly multimodal optical on-board interconnects is presented. The approach is based on an extended ray tracing technique which takes mode coupling caused by waveguide inhomogenities and manufacturing based surface roughness into account. The influence of rough waveguide boundaries is considered by a Monte Carlo technique which models the scattering of plane waves by rough surfaces. A first verification of this technique is carried out with the help of the Coupled Power Theory. A dielectric slab waveguide with random surface distortions is analyzed by both methods. The comparison of the results shows an excellent agreement.