A high fiber density optical connector for use in electronic packaging systems

This paper describes the design features and performance of a circuit pack to backplane multifiber optical connector capable of interconnecting up to 18 fibers through the backplane of an electronic hardware packaging system. Although designed for the AT&T FASTECH system, it is compatible with most other backplane type systems. The connector (shown on Figure 1) uses etched V-groove silicon chip arrays to terminate the fibers. These arrays are housed in flame retardant, plastic, snap fit assemblies that contain array alignment and protection features. The housings fit into mounting holes in the backplane and circuit pack. The silicon array on the circuit pack is automatically aligned and optically connected to the backplane silicon array when the circuit pack is plugged in. The optical fibers, used in the connector, can be either discrete or ribbon form. When discrete fibers are used, they are terminated on one end in a common silicon array and on the other end with single fiber connectors. This assembly is called a fanout. Ribbon fiber is terminated on both ends with silicon arrays. The same housings are used for either fanouts or ribbon fiber. The average insertion loss is 0.53dB (sigma=0.23dB) at 0.87 micron wavelength with 50/125 fiber and no index match. These results were obtained from 732 fiber loss measurements on 61 array assemblies. Loss was measured with fully moded cores (no mode filters) before and after the connector (short launch - short receive conditions). :