Case Study: Military Avionics Equipment Manufacturer - Mil-Aero Transceiver Interconnect

The Challenge: Packaging requirements for a military aircraft application left minimal room for an optical interconnect assembly.  A flexible single-mode optical fan-out assembly needed to interface between a rear-mounted MIL-C-38999 external disconnect and an on-board parallel optical transceiver. 

The Solution:

• The only optical assembly that met customer requirements
• Far exceeded competitor performance at temperature extremes

Optical fiber is subject to both macro-bending and micro-bending losses.  Micro-bending losses are easily induced by typically large CTE (Coefficient of Thermal Expansion) mismatches between the glass and the polymer cabling materials.  Cold temperatures exacerbate such losses and this is especially true for single-mode fiber.  For a mil-aero application, this could have a major impact on reliability.   This is why all GORE™ Fiber Optic Cable incorporates an ePTFE buffer layer to minimize micro-bending effects vy acting to decouple the mismatched materials.

Gore anticipated optical loss issues for the fan-out assembly.  We built and tested samples and discovered very significant optical loss from the customer-specified design.  Large measured losses at -40° C on a typical channel would have meant a major system redesign for the customer.   Gore brought its considerable materials expertise and optical termination experience to bear and developed a superior solution.

Gore’s unique technology:

• Reduced typical optical losses such as 19 dB to less than 1 dB at cold temperature
• Saved a major system redesign
• Met full military qualification