Optical interconnect apparatus and system

An optical interconnect apparatus comprising:

• an optical signal path;
• a first set of fibers attached to a first end of said optical signal path through a first wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) filter, said first WDM filter being between said first set of fibers and said first end of said optical signal path;
• and
• a second set of fibers attached to a second end of said optical signal path through a second WDM filter, said second WDM filter being between said second set of fibers and said second end of said optical signal path,
• wherein at least the first set of fibers is a first ribbon fiber, and
• wherein the first WDM filter is a thin-film based WDM filter and wherein an optical signal propagating from one of said first set of fibers to said first end of said optical signal path through said thin-film based WDM filter experiences less than 0.5 dB total insertion loss, the less then 0.5 dB total insertion loss being associated with, and enabled by, the use of said thin-film based WDM filter.