Working Groups - Optical Interconnection Technology

Photonic Packaging and Interconnection Technologies

Our core competence is development of innovative packaging systems comprising microelectronic, optical and microsystems components for tele- and datacom, lighting and sensors. Prototyping and hardware demonstrators are realized on basis of systematic simulation, customer specific design, and reliability and failure mechanisms investigations. This wide base serves the development of customer specific solutions and cutting-edge scientific development in photonic packaging and interconnection technologies leading to excellence in service provision.

Our customers come from sectors such as communications-, sensors-, medical- and laser-technology.  The group has a wide range of competencies based on the production of hybrid packages from polymer, glass, and semiconductor materials requiring high-precision, sub-micron placement and fixing with a high level of automation. 

Equipment

  • CREAVAC – CREAMET 600 CL2 S3 
    • Sputtering of metal coatings
    • Flexible material variation due to three simultaneously installed targets.
    • Panel size up to 610 mm x 610 mm 
  • Ahk Compact-Dip 
    • Photoresist dip-coater
    • Positive and negative photoresist 
    • Panel size up to 610 mm x 610 mm
    • down to 2µm thin layer
  • MDI – LD600G 
    • Laser system for glass cutting and structuring 
    • Hybrid laser machine (532 nm and 10.6 µm) 
    • Panel size up to 610 mm x 610 mm
  • Splicer (Fiberdiamter 50-2000µm)

  • Recoater for fibers
    • Diameter <280µm (possible other)
    • 4-50mm lenght
  • Alignment / Pick‘n‘place Machines 
    • Industrial production machines (ficonTEC AL 500 / 1000, 6 DOF-grippers + additional motion axes) 
    • Piezo hexapod lab systems (13 DOF with nm resolution) 
    • Finetech FINEPLACER Sigma (sub-µm placement accuracy in fully manual or semi-automatic configuration
    • Various Interconnection Technologies Glueing, Soldering, Silver Sintering
    • Bond Forces up to 500N
    • Temperature up to 300°C
  • UHV comined coating device (CREAMET 500 Cl3) 
    • Wafer/Panel size up to 200 x 200 mm² 
    • Ion source for pretreatment
    • 2 independent, combinable processing chambers
      • 1.  RF/DC sputtering for wolfram, nickel, chromium or others
      • 2. 6kW multipocket vaporizer
        • Metals / metal oxides (Au, Al, TiO2, Al2O3, etc.)
        • Layer thickness: several nm…300 nm with structure dimensions of several mm x mm
        • Layer homogeneity: ±3% auf 200 x 200 mm
  • Mikro-UHV vacuum bonder (Lava-X)
    • Hermetically sealed connections of glass substrates by laser-aided heating of glass solders
    • Incl. high-performance fibre laser
    • DProcessing in high vacuums (up to 10^-7mbar) or controlled atmospheres  
  • 3D glas printer (Lightfab) 
    • Sample sizes: 200 by 200 mm
    • Resolution: 1µm
    • Processing of 3D microstructres by SLE+KOH
    • Glass welding
    • 3D waveguide etching in glass
    • 2PP (3D laser-lithographie)

Measuring equipment

  • Shrinkage measurement station
    • Measuring thin adhesive layers (typ 100µm)
    • Shrinkage path resolution: 50nm
  • Near field refractometer
    • 1D and 2D profiles of refractive index
    • Measurement wavelength: 678 nm
    • n = 1.42 – 1.62, Resolution: 10-4
  • Prisme coupler (Metricon 2010/M)
    • Abbe refractometer and m-line spectroscope
    • n = 1.0 – 2.1, Resolution: 10^-4
    • Measurement wavelengths: 406, 633, 830, 1,550 nm
    • Layer thickness measurement (inverse WKB)
  • (Self-build) Waveguide characterization tool
    • Insertion, coupling and propagation losses (single- and multi-mode)
    • Sample size: 40 – 400 mm length, 10 – 300 mm width
    • Available wavelengths:
      • Single-Frequency-Laser: 635nm, 710 – 735nm, 780nm, 840 – 877nm,  
        1310nm and 1550nm
      • Broadband source: 410 – 2400 nm 
    • Mode field diameter (fiber and PIC)
      • IR-Camera (SWIR camera Goldeye G-130)
        • Spectral range of 400 nm – 1700 nm
      • Transversal offset method
  • Automatic waveguide coupling system
    • Semi-automatic optical chip- & panel-level tester (insertion losses, mode field diameter, coupling losses . . .)
    • Fast Precision Alignment and Assembly of fiber-to-chip
  • Luna OBR 4600 Optical Backscatter Reflectometer (OBR)
    • Optical frequency domain reflectometer
    • Measurement wavelength: 1,525 – 1,610 nm
    • Sampling resolution
      • 10 μm (30 m length)
      • 20 μm (70 m length)
      • 1 mm (2000 m length)
    • Backscatter-level sensitivity: -130 dB
    • RL dynamic range, 80 dB
    • IL dynamic range, 18 dB
  • General characterization
    • Keyence VHX 6000 – light microscope:
      • 2D & 3D visualization
    • Olympus LEXT OLS4000 – laser measuring microscope:
      • 3D nano meter level imaging
      • Z-resolution 2nm,  X/Y resolution 200nm
  • WITec alpha300RS 
    • Correlative Raman and Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (SNOM) 
    • High-resolution optical imaging beyond the diffraction limit (ca. 60 nm laterally)
  • Optical Spectrometer (200-800nm) and (190-1700nm) 
  • Optical Spectrum Analyzer (Yokogawa AQ6370D-22)
    • Wavelengths from 600 to 1700 nm
    • High wavelength precision: ±0.01 nm
    • High wavelength resolution: 0.02 nm
    • Wide dynamic range: 78 dB typ.
    • Wide input level range: +20 to -90 dBm
  • Nearfield Gonimeter (270-1300nm)
    • LEDs and small emitters
    • Resolution: 0.5°

Design/Simulation

  • Solidworks
  • Altium
  • Downstream CAM®
  • Ansys (u.a. Lumerical)
  • Comsol®
  • Zemax®