36-channel, 120 Gigabit/s parallel optical interconnect

This study reviews preliminary experimental data on accelerated aging test of VCSEL and detector arrays bonded to either silicon or SiGe application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). When compared with top emitting VCSEL (unbonded), results show that the flip chip bonding technology is more robust, reliable, and environmentally sound. In addition, technological benefits of 2-D array technology in terms of superior reliability over linear array solutions when scaling to high channel count is asserted. Moreover, reliability issues for modules are considered as the VCSEL data rate exceed 10 Gbs.