A NEW ASSEMBLY ARCHITECTURE FOR MULTICHANNEL SINGLE MODE-FIBER-PIGTAIL LD PD MODULES/

A new assembly architecture is developed for alignment and soldering b etween SM-fiber arrays and LD/PD arrays. The image position detection method, by eliminating degrees of freedom for alignment, improves asse mbly throughput to be twice that of conventional assembly architecture . The thermal shrinkage compensation method achieves high-precision so ldering by cancelling misalignments due to thermal shrinkage of assemb ly equipment and solder volume. As a result, assembly, through all pro cesses, achieves +/-1.5 - mum precision which corresponds to a +/-1-dB fluctuation of coupling efficiency. Based on this architecture, 8-cha nnel SM-fiber-pigtail LD/PD modules are successfully assembled.