Packaging Challenges for Silicon and InP Photonic Integrated Circuits

Integration of photonic components is of great interest as it enables improved functionality and performance, supports new applications and can result in lower manufacturing costs, especially for complex photonic systems. However packaging of these systems presents many technical challenges which affect the overall cost, limiting the up-take and commercialisation of integrated photonics. Packaging still dominates the cost per module and is often overlooked, especially at the initial design phase. This presentation will address key challenges associated with packaging Silicon and InP photonic integrated circuits, focussing on fibre coupling, active device integration and thermo-mechanical factors. We present details of packaging techniques that we have developed to address many of these challenges and ways to optimize them for volume manufacture. We will also present details of major European research programmes focusing on integrated photonics and especially programmes that address photonic packaging. In particular, we will provide an overview of the ePIXfab service that offers affordable access to silicon photonic modules, from chip design and processing to advanced packaging.