Injection-moulded fibre ribbon connectors for parallel optical links fabricated by the LIGA technique

Using the LIGA technique prototypes of twelve-fibre-wide ribbon connector ferrules have been developed that provide low-loss physical-contact multimode connections for parallel interfaces. The ferrules are injection moulded and the modular mould insert has been fabricated by means of microtechnology (LIGA) and electro-discharge machining. After assembling, mated couples of these ferrules show average insertion loss values of 0.35 dB and have been used to successfully transmit data with a transfer rate of 250 Mbit s(-1) per fibre over a 100 m distance.