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High Precision Fiber Array Assembly Products for Silicon Photonics Integrated Chips
Mar. 02, 2023
POINTek, Inc., a global leader and provider of high performance athermal AWG products, announced launching of a new series Silicon Photonics (SiPh) Fiber Arrays, supporting the back-end packaging for various Silicon Photonics Integrated Circuits (PIC).
This series of the new Silicon Photonics Fiber Arrays exhibits the excellent characteristics of a fine fiber-end mirror-surface quality and an accurate fiber protrusion length uniformity to match with the prefabricated V-grooves on a Silicon PIC chip. The fiber protrusion length is designed as short as 2mm with ≤±2mm length uniformity in an array (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Silicon Photonics Polarization Maintaining Fiber Arrays: (Left) with 2mm Fiber Protrusion and Standard MT Ferrule Termination; (Right) with 5mm Fiber Protrusion and VSFF MT Connector Termination.
These new SiPh Fiber Arrays are available in the Single Mode (SM) Fiber Arrays and the Polarization Maintaining (PM) Fiber Arrays with the following features: 1) fiber protrusion with or without a V-groove, 2) MT ferrule termination or bare fiber termination, and 3) Standard MT ferrule interface or Very Small Form Factor (VSFF) MT ferrule interfaces (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Silicon Photonics Polarization Maintaining Fiber Arrays:
(Left) SiPh PM Fiber Array Head showing Fiber Protrusion; (Right) SiPh PM Fiber Array with MT Ferrule Termination
"This series of the new SiPh Fiber Arrays is a new and upgraded addition to our current SiPh Fiber Array which we released in 2022," according to Dr. Donald Yu, CMO of POINTek, operating from Los Angeles, California. Yu explains that a SiPh Fiber Array is designed to passively align the multiple optical fibers into the wafer-fabricated V-grooves of the multiple I/O waveguides on a PIC chip without the expensive and complicated active alignment equipment. "In the previous release of our first SiPh Fiber Arrays, we mostly focused on the technology to perform fine end-face polishing on the protruded fibers with the very uniform 5mm-fiber length in an array. In this release of our new series of SiPh Fiber Arrays, we have added more features such as short fiber protrusion lengths, fiber array assembly types and MT ferrule interface types for meeting the application specific customer requirements," Yu adds.
"The I/O form factor design is an important parameter for the Silicon PIC because it affects the performance, cost, reliability, package dimension and more. However, it is very difficult for the Silicon PIC manufactures to satisfy all these factors simultaneously, so that they have to choose between or balance these factors in order to achieve the best result. At this stage, Silicon PIC manufactures adopt the various I/O designs. This practical point has motivated us to upgrade our technology to meet the demands in the engineering field, and we are capable of offering various protrusion lengths as short as 2mm, fiber array assembly designs, MT ferrule interfaces and many other customer-specific features," says Dr. T.H. Rhee, CEO of POINTek. "In addition, we are proud of introducing the VSFF MT interface version of the SiPh Fiber Arrays because it enables simpler and more compact Silicon PIC installation on a PCBA or mobile devices in the future," Rhee adds.
POINTek's specialty in high performance optical component offers a timely and appropriate packaging solution to the Silicon PICs and monolithic electro-optic devices in the access network telecom industry as well as high performance computing and gaming industry, and these SiPh fiber array products will be shown in POINTek booth 6219 at the forthcoming OFC2023 Exposition in San Diego Convention Center, March 7-9, 2023.
"The I/O form factor design is an important parameter for the Silicon PIC because it affects the performance, cost, reliability, package dimension and more. However, it is very difficult for the Silicon PIC manufactures to satisfy all these factors simultaneously, so that they have to choose between or balance these factors in order to achieve the best result. At this stage, Silicon PIC manufactures adopt the various I/O designs. This practical point has motivated us to upgrade our technology to meet the demands in the engineering field, and we are capable of offering various protrusion lengths as short as 2mm, fiber array assembly designs, MT ferrule interfaces and many other customer-specific features," says Dr. T.H. Rhee, CEO of POINTek. "In addition, we are proud of introducing the VSFF MT interface version of the SiPh Fiber Arrays because it enables simpler and more compact Silicon PIC installation on a PCBA or mobile devices in the future," Rhee adds.
POINTek's specialty in high performance optical component offers a timely and appropriate packaging solution to the Silicon PICs and monolithic electro-optic devices in the access network telecom industry as well as high performance computing and gaming industry, and these SiPh fiber array products will be shown in POINTek booth 6219 at the forthcoming OFC2023 Exposition in San Diego Convention Center, March 7-9, 2023.
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