Multichip optical hybrid integration technique with planar lightwave circuit platform

A two-step bonding technique for optical device assembly on a planar lightwave circuit platform was developed, which consists of a chip-by-chip thermo-compression prebonding step and a simultaneous reflow bonding step. The technique was used to realize multichip optical integration on the platform. The characteristics of the bonding technique were examined by investigating its strength and accuracy. The bonding accuracies in the horizontal and vertical directions were 1.1 and 0.8 μm, respectively, with high bonding strength. The technique was first applied to a 3 chip integrated transceiver module and the 136 fabricated modules exhibited good performance. The average coupling loss between the laser diodes and the waveguide was estimated to be 4.1 dB and stable characteristics were observed during 1200 cycle thermal shock tests between -40 and 85°C. Next, the two-step bonding technique was used for a 4 channel laser diode module on which 8 optical device chips were integrated and a low coupling loss was achieved of better than 4.2 dB which is as good as that of the 3 chip integrated optical modules.