Parameter extraction for a figure-of-merit approach for the comparison of optical interconnects

A methodology is described for parameter extraction from modeling for the determination of the appropriate figures of merit (FOMs) to be used for comparisons between different architectures of optical interconnects and their electrical counterparts. The key FOM selected for performance is that of data throughput, defined as the product of bitrate and interconnect length. Parameter extraction proceeds through modeling of a prototype optical transceiver introduced by GTE laboratories. Optical power budget modeling is performed as it applies to a simple basic optical interconnect, which can then be extended to the modeling of arrays, by incorporating channel crosstalk limitations. Through this modeling, the specific limitations to the data throughput are explored and several trade-offs such as those between gain and speed, power and delay-times, and power and bit error rate (BER) are quantified.