Light and PCB Design from buzai232's blog

Researchers Sumita Mishra, et al. observe that there has been a wave of research on optical interconnect technology, which essentially focuses on integrating optical systems with electrical systems to create high-speed data links.To get more news about BT PCB, you can visit pcbmake official website.

In this article, we will discuss the place of light in PCB design and assess one new branch of optical interconnections that promises higher bandwidth and low-noise signal connections.
Light, which is already replacing traditional copper wires in telecommunications, is one very tangible candidate for replacing electrical connections for several factors, according to a chapter on optical communication systems from the University of Colorado Boulder. This is especially relevant given the high demands of 5G networking. But before we explain these factors, there is one myth that needs to be clarified regarding light.

Some believe that light is better than electrical current because light is faster than electricity and therefore can transport information from one place to another faster. This, in some cases, is factually incorrect because light travels slower in fibreoptic cables than electricity travels through copper wires.The advantage of using light in data connections is that light has a higher bandwidth, allowing more data bits to be carried per second—a result of the higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that light has when compared to electrical signals.

One contributing factor to the higher SNR is that fiberoptic cables themselves are virtually immune to their environment whereas classic electric cables can pick up external electric and magnetic fields (i.e. EMI). Other factors include the ability to send multiple frequencies of light (red, blue, and green) down the same optic cable without them interfering with each other, effectively increasing the overall bandwidth. Light can also travel longer down a cable than electricity before requiring a signal boost, therefore removing sources of potential noise injection.

But there are multiple technologies that have used optical layers on a PCB to transmit data around the board between components. This they achieve through specialized 90° grooves that can create optical vias to reflect the light up to the component layer. Researchers from the Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT) proposed a 90° light-path conversion device, which depicts this concept below.

But while inter-optical connections on a single PCB are possible, it will only provide local bandwidth increases on a board. What we really need is the ability to connect individual PCBs to an optical backplane where large computer systems can transmit data across many hundreds of boards. Such a system would reduce the complexity of interconnecting boards without the need for many fibreoptic cables. This also allows for direct optical communication between ICs.