IEEE Photonics Journal (Jan 2017)

Flip Chip Packaging of Digital Silicon Photonics MEMS Switch for Cloud Computing and Data Centre

  • How Yuan Hwang,
  • Jun Su Lee,
  • Tae Joon Seok,
  • Alex Forencich,
  • Hannah R. Grant,
  • Dylan Knutson,
  • Niels Quack,
  • Sangyoon Han,
  • Richard S. Muller,
  • George C. Papen,
  • Ming C. Wu,
  • Peter O'Brien

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOT.2017.2704097
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 3
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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We report on the flip chip packaging of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS)-based digital silicon photonic switching device and the characterization results of 12 × 12 switching ports. The challenges in packaging N 2 electrical and 2N optical interconnections are addressed with single-layer electrical redistribution lines of 25 μm line width and space on aluminum nitride interposer and 13° polished 64-channel lidless fiber array (FA) with a pitch of 127 μm. 50 μm diameter solder spheres are laser-jetted onto the electrical bond pads surrounded by suspended MEMS actuators on the device before fluxless flip-chip bonding. A lidless FA is finally coupled near-vertically onto the device gratings using a 6-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) alignment system. Fiber-to-grating coupler loss of 4.25 dB/facet, 10–11 bit error rate (BER) through the longest optical path, and 0.4 μs switch reconfiguration time have been demonstrated using 10 Gb/s Ethernet data stream.

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