EOCB - Electrical-Optical Circuit Board

In the area of long-haul telecommunication technology optical communication links had almost completely substituted electrical data links. Also communication links for shorter distances, i.e.. for local area networks, are implemented by optical technologies. The major advantages of the optical data transmission - which are huge bandwidth or data rate, respectively, and reduced susceptibility to interference - are also of large interest  for short-reach interconnects. In the project "EOCB" (Electrical-Optical Circuit Board) basic investigations of optical interconnection technology are performed. The overall objective is to examine the feasibility of electrical-optical printed circuit boards and to assess their use in various application areas (automotive engineering, computer technology). Furthermore, basic algorithms to analyze and characterize optical multimode waveguides manufactured by a hot embossing process were developed in the course of this project. Another key aspect of this project is dealing with the coupling of laser diodes and photodiodes to optical waveguides integrated in the printed circuit board. 

Project funded by: BMBF
Project duration: 03/1998 - 06/2001
Project partners: Siemens SBS C-LAB (D), Robert Bosch GmbH (D), Andus Electronic GmbH (D), Mikropack GmbH (D), ILFA Feinstleitertechnik GmbH (D), OECA GmbH (D), Universität Paderborn (D), Fraunhofer-Institut für Zuverlässigkeit Mikrointegration Berlin (D)
Contact: Dr. Jürgen Schrage, C-LAB
Dr. Engelbert Strake, Robert Bosch GmbH, Projectmanager