Polymer optical interconnects have been under development for decades and have found use in multimode data center applications, but to date have seen limited use as single-mode optical interconnects, where the preference has been to use optical fiber. However, with the emergence of high volume, high port count silicon photonics, the cost and packaging limitations of single-mode fiber are increasingly evident. We will discuss several innovations we have developed to facilitate optical interconnection between silicon photonics chips, either directly or via an underlying optical printed circuit board, including misalignment tolerant inverse tapers and dry-film direct write refractive index contrast polymers.
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