Active fiber-solder-ferrule alignment method for high-performance opto-electronic device packaging

In optical communication systems, the transceivers, including both transmitters and receivers, are the key components of system quality and bandwidth. Fiber-solder-ferrule (FSF) assembly has been widely adopted in packaging high performance transceivers such as dual-in-line package and butterfly package. The flexibility and size of the fiber and ferrule, traditional FSF packaging process is done manually and the average accuracy of the fiber position is around 80 μm. In this case, approximately 1 out of 5 FSF assemblies will have an accuracy of less than 20 μm, which past research shows is sufficient to maintain 90% coupling efficiency of the optoelectronic devices. This study proposes a novel method for automating the fiber-solder-ferrule packaging process based on thorough system analysis. Finally, a packaging system is developed to improve the accuracy of the fiber position to up to 20 μm.