Design of a Crossbar Switch Chip for Use in a Demonstration System of an Optoelectronic Multi-Chip Module

Recent research has been conducted in the area of optoelectronic interconnection and packaging technology in order to proliferate the feasibility of extremely high bandwidth and low latency optoelectronic “multi-chip modules” (OE-MCMs). Our group’s contribution to this area involves the use of rigid fiber bundle image guides serving as both interconnect and packaging for such a module. Our demonstration architecture for this technology is an OE-MCM that implements a 64-channel non-blocking fiber optic crossbar switch. Each OE-chip implements 64 channels of optical input and output that are guided within the MCM by an optic built from two segments of image guide. The focus of this paper is the design and layout of the chips which each serve as one of the three switching elements in this demonstration system.