Development of sol-gel integrated optical waveguide for Electro-Optical PCB

For several years data rate limitation in printed circuit technology becomes more and more actually. A promising approach to increase bandwidth in the future links are integrated optical interconnections. The next generation PCBs will be Electro-Optical Printed Circuit Board (EOPCB). Polymer optical waveguides on the basis of cost effective sol-gel materials are one possible solution to be up to data rate requirements. "Waveguide-in-copper" enables realization of optical interconnects on the PCB-level. The additive technology by using copper electroplating offers improvement in structuring of fine pitch. In this paper design, development and fabrication of integrated waveguides will be described in detail. The structuring of host material with use of typical PCB-techniques as well as different sol-gel materials and methods of coating polymer layers are presented.