A low-cost, high-speed optical interconnect replacement for current electrical interconnects on printed circuit boards is provided. The invention achieves its goal by including an optical transmitter module or optical receiver module mounted in close proximity to a modulator used to encode optical signals from electrical impulses or decode optical signals to electrical impulses. A bare optical fiber is then used to transmit the signal from an optical encoding source to an optical receiver, providing a high-speed method of replacement for traditional electrical interconnects.