Board edge mount active optical connector

Reflex Photonics Inc. has developed compact 40G full duplex (4+4) 10Gbps/lane optical fiber transceivers for harsh environment applications such as Aerospace and Defense. These products were made to be embedded on printed-circuit boards in close proximity to high speed electronics in high performance embedded computing systems to optimize their performance [1,2]. Going one step further, the industry was asking for these transceivers to be integrated in board edge connectors to free-up more space on the board and avoid optical fiber handling. This implied important challenges for bi-planar position tolerancing between the electrical interface on a horizontal board and the optical interface based on a multi-fiber MT ferrule, in an orthogonal plane. We will present how these challenges were confronted with success.