Reducing EMC problems through an electrical/optical interconnection technology

A novel interconnection technology for printed circuit boards (PCBs) is proposed that has the potential to meet the high-performance requirements of future electronic equipment while at the same time, the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) behavior will be improved significantly. The technology has a far-reaching compatibility with the existing printed circuit-board technology and the existing design and manufacturing processes of the electrical part do not need significant modifications. After a short description of the most important basic technologies for its realization, this paper focuses on a general approach for modeling the resulting hybrid electrical/optical interconnections containing integrated optical highly multimodal waveguides with manufacturing-caused rough surfaces. Especially the transient analysis is addressed in order to provide an efficient analysis methodology and algorithms for timing and signal integrity prediction necessary for designing and manufacturing high-speed electronic systems. The developed overall modeling strategy is explained and first available results are presented.