Patent ID: 7587115

Claim:
An optical backplane system, the system comprising: an optical backplane interconnect comprising a plurality of optical fibers for providing an optical pathway between a plurality of optical nodes, wherein the plurality of optical fibers comprise at least one group of multiple fibers, wherein the at least one group of multiple fibers are terminated in a fixed termination layout of one or more input fibers and one or more output fibers, and further wherein one or more holding materials are used to hold the one or more input fibers and one or more output fibers of the optical backplane interconnect together in the fixed termination layout; and a functional optical device comprising one or more input fibers and a functional portion configured to operate on an optical input received via the one or more input fibers to provide an optical output via one or more output fibers of the functional optical device, wherein the one or more input fibers and the one or more output fibers of the functional optical device are terminated in a fixed configuration based on the fixed termination layout of the at least one group of multiple fibers, wherein one or more coupling materials are used to hold the one or more input fibers and one or more output fibers of the functional optical device together in the fixed configuration, wherein the at least one group of multiple fibers of the optical backplane are held together in the fixed termination layout by the one or more holding materials prior to connection to the functional optical device, and further wherein the one or more input fibers and one or more output fibers of the functional optical device are held together in the fixed configuration by the one or more coupling materials prior to being connected to the optical backplane interconnect.