Polylithic Opto-Electronic Integrated Circuit

Irvine Sensors proposes Self-Aligning Polylithic Opto-Electronic Integrated Circuit (SAPOEIC), a low cost technique that can be used to mount and interconnect both optical and electronic devices of any material on a common substrate of any material without specific designs and elaborate assembly equipment. ISC's self-aligning flip chip bonding process has been used successfully on several electro-optical programs. It involves the insertion of an array of solder bumps into a matching array of polyimide sockets. The bumps carry the electrical signals along with excess heat and the sockets provide self alignment and solder damming. A logical extension of this concept would be to use the polyimide for socketing and as a waveguide material. As the laser diode or photodiode is brought into very high precision alignment by the mating of the bump and socket, then the respective emitting and detecting regions of these devices are also automatically aligned to the pre-existing waveguides. Anticipated Benefits/Potential Commercial Applications of the Research or Development. The development of SAPOEIC will provide a base which will allow fabrication of commercial and military opto-electronic integrated circuits for digital as well as analog applications. With additional reliability, lower cost, and improved performance, the production of OEICs will become more common. As these become more available, communication function design will