Patent ID: 7359641

Claim:
An optical transceiver for converting and coupling an information-containing electrical signal with an optical fiber comprising: a housing including an electrical connector for coupling with an external electrical cable or information system device and for transmitting and/or receiving an information-containing electrical communications signal, a fiber optic connector adapted for coupling with an external optical fiber for transmitting and/or receiving an optical communications signal, and a base member and a cover member forming a XENPAK pluggable module; at least one electro-optical subassembly in the housing for converting between an information-containing electrical signal and a modulated optical signal corresponding to the electrical signal; a communications protocol processing subassembly in the housing for processing the communications signal into a predetermined electrical or optical communications protocol, wherein the protocol processing subassembly is compliant with IEEE 802.3ae 10 GBASE-LX4; wherein one of said electro-optical subassemblies is a receiver subassembly including: an optical demultiplexer coupled to said fiber optic connector for receiving a multi-wavelength optical signal having a plurality of information-containing signals each with a different predetermined wavelength and demultiplexing the optical signal into distinct optical beams corresponding to said predetermined wavelengths; a substrate forming an optical reference plane and including a plurality of photodiodes each of which is disposed on the substrate in the path of a distinct optical beam, the photodiodes functioning to convert the respective optical signals into an electrical signal that is coupled to said electrical connector for transmitting the electrical signal to an electrical cable or external information system device; and an array of individual photodiodes and wherein the optical demultiplexer includes an optical block with a plurality of wavelength selecting elements and reflectors operative to direct the optical beams from each respective wavelength selecting element to respective ones of a plurality of spatially separated image positions corresponding to the locations of the individual photodiodes.