During DesignCon 2013, Samtec demonstrated our FireFly™ Micro Flyover System. Samtec's FireFly™ is the first interconnect system that gives the designer a choice of using either micro footprint optical or copper interconnects to meet today's data rate requirements and the next generation. By taking the data connectors “off-board”, the data routing of the board is made significantly easier, and the electrical performance improves.
Samtec also presented a Technical Paper at the show featuring FireFly™ called, "Advances in Onboard Optical Interconnects: A New Generation of Miniature Optical Engines". As bit rates and I/O density continue to rise according to Moore's law, traditional Copper interconnect solutions are being challenged. Progress in optical technology and miniaturized packaging are enabling a new generation of miniature optical engines that are small enough to be put directly on board next to, or even within, an IC package. These multi-lane devices are currently being designed for speeds up to 28 Gbps per lane making them a strong contender for the upcoming generation of chip-to-chip, chip-to-backplane or chip-to-optical cable ultra-high speed interconnects. In this introductory paper, we explore new offerings, present the main technology choices and address the practical aspect of on-board and on-IC optical interconnect implementations.
Samtec's FireFly™ demonstration was featured in Brian Vicich's EDA Café interview and was also mentioned in the EE Times DesignCon follow-up .
If you missed this presentation or if you would like to read the paper, you can do so at the links below:
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