Optoelectronics Packaging – Challenges and Solutions
It seems like only yesterday that the stock prices of optoelectronics companies were soaring to record highs on a daily basis. Obviously, the business climate has changed dramatically from a year ago. Despite the recent business and economic downturn there is still a keen interest in Opto packaging. Over 150 engineers, scientists and executives turned out for the IMAPS Opto Packaging ATW recently held in Bethlehem, PA. The Lehigh Valley is a hotbed of Opto startups and for many who attended the ATW it was their first exposure to an IMAPS event. It was exciting and interesting to see the exchange of information between the traditional IMAPSers and new faces from the Opto community. There are many materials and processing similarities between traditional military chip and wire hybrids and the hot new optoelectronic devices. Granted, there are also many new technical challenges and issues such as fiber alignment with submicron tolerances, but to my way of thinking an Opto device is nothing more than a hybrid with a light pipe.
The assembly and test of optical devices such as modulators, detectors, amplifiers and optical MEMS is still as an industry in its infancy and very dependent on manual processes. As Opto moves out of the labs and onto the production floor there are many “Lessons Learned” ready to be shared by the IMAPS membership base. For example: die bonding, wirebonding, plasma cleaning and package sealing have been studied and written about at length over the years. Hermeticity and RGA (Residual Gas Analysis) are always a hot topic, especially at the Minnowbrook Conference each year. Outgassing of organics and the rise of TM 5011 have been well chronicled through the years at IMAPS symposia. Thick film ceramic and LTCC are core IMAPS technologies and now critical processes in the manufacture of laser submounts. Gold plated kovar packages, glass to metal seals, plating processes, thin film technology, eutectic die attach, epoxy die attach, etc., are all now essential Opto manufacturing processes. From the early days of hermetically sealed chip and wire hybrids there is an enormous corporate knowledge base that has developed within our society and is available to the growing number of Otpo start ups hungry for materials and processing expertise.
In this edition of Advancing Microelectronics we’ve assembled three articles that address some of the key technical challenges in Opto packaging. In the first article, author Robert Irvin provides us with a beautiful overview of the Opto design process, from understanding the customer's needs to performing mechanical, thermal, electrical, and optical designs, and understanding how the different parts of the design interact. Then Jeff Shakeseare walks us through the intricacies of fiber alignment and how the choice of alignment techniques influences yield and ultimately cost. For the “vertically challenged” we have an excellent article on wirebonding in a butterfly package. Lee Levine explains nicely the pitfalls of deep access bonding and other wirebond issues unique to the Opto world.
Optoelectronics packaging brings with it a new set of requirements and challenges. The corporate knowledge base embodied by IMAPS has much to offer the growing optoelectronics packaging industry. While we have much to offer we have even more to learn! I’m excited about this growth potential and look forward to continued synergy with the Opto community. Enjoy the readings.
Tom Green is currently a technical director at the National Training Center for Microelectronics where he develops curricula and teaches industry short courses related to microelectronics and optoelectronics materials and packaging technology. He also provides consulting services and in-plant training solutions. Tom has over 20 years of combined microelectronics packaging experience in industry, academia and Dept. of Defense. He has published numerous technical papers and journal articles and is an active IMAPS contributor. Recently, Tom served as the General Chair for the Optoelectronics Packaging Advanced Technology Workshop. You can contact him at 610-861-4128 or email at tgreen@northampton.edu.
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