The following excerpt from MRSI Systems latest article published in Laser Focus World Magazine, demonstrates how the latest advanced automated die bonding systems are transforming the world of photonics manufacturing –
To illustrate our understanding of an automation solution, here is a case study to handle one of the key manufacturing processes — die bonding. Figure 4 is a view of the variety of parts that usually must go through photonics manufacturing. The varieties of these parts result from different types/generations of products to support a wide spectrum of data center communication networks. There are a few major process steps associated with different finished products:
1.
For Gold Box products such as transceivers, high-power lasers, typically chip-on-carrier/submount (CoC/CoS) bonding is done first and then the CoC/CoS is bonded onto a common baseplate for lens/mirror attach before putting into a package. The latest trend is that more chips or dies such as the laser, capacitances, and thermistor need to be attached onto a common carrier by either eutectic or epoxy bonding.
2.
For PCB level of products such as active optical cable (AOC) and onboard optics (OBO), the dies are attached directly onto a PCB. Multiple dies such as a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) array, photodiode (PD) array, laser driver, and transimpedance amplifier (TIA) need to be attached on the PCB. The final lens attachment is done by active alignment historically, but now more and more it is done using passive die attach with the availability of high-speed, high-precision (3 µm) die bonding equipment.
3.
For TO-can-type products, the laser chip and other dies are attached onto a TO base or the vertical post after 90° flipping. To support upcoming 5G wireless deployment, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) lasers and electro-absorption modulated lasers (EMLs) are packaged into low-cost TO-can packaging. With many dies that are required to attach, these WDM/EML-TOs are far more complicated than traditional TO-can packaging that only need to handle 1–2 dies.
