Parallel optical interface

Aparallel optical interfaceis a form offiber-optictechnology aimed primarily atcommunicationsandnetworkingover relatively short distances (less than 300 meters), and at highbandwidths.

Parallel optic interfaces differ from traditionalfiber-optic communicationin that data is simultaneously transmitted and received over multiple fibers. Different methods exist for splitting the data over this high-bandwidth link. In the simplest form, theparalleloptic link is a replacement for manyserial-data communicationlinks. In the more typical application, one byte of information is split up into bits and each bit is coded and sent across the individual fibers. Needless to say, there are many ways to perform thismultiplexingprovided the fundamental coding at the fiber level meets the channel requirement.

The main applications for parallel optical interfaces are found intelecommunicationsandsupercomputers,also being introduced to consumer applications.It displaces copperbackplanesthat are commonly used for large switching equipment design.

There are two forms of commercially available products for parallel optic interfaces. The first is a twelve-channel system consisting of anoptical transmitterand anoptical receiver.The second is a four channeltransceiverproduct that is capable of transmitting four channels and receiving four channels in one product.

Parallel optics is often the most cost-effective solution for getting 40Gigabit per secondtransmission of data over distances exceeding 100 meters. 100GE Optical Transceiver comes with 100 Gigabit of data transmit. Data is delivered in both duplex and parallel mechanism with 100GE.

See also

• Fiber-optic cable
• Interconnect bottleneck
• Optical communication
• Thunderbolt (interface)