A Novel Packaging Platform for High-Performance Optical Engines in Hyperscale Data Center Applications

Abstract

Due to the increase in the amount of data handled and evolving data center architectures, there is a growing demand to use high-performance optical transceivers within and between the data centers. We propose a new heterogeneous packaging platform for optical transceivers that can handle higher data rates addressing cost, performance, and form-factor requirements. In this paper, the proof of concept is demonstrated by developing a passive optical engine package with a size of 11mmx11mm integrating electronic and photonic chips. To realize this, a fan-out wafer-level packaging method is employed that can provide high-speed electrical interconnects and integrated photonic chip with suspended optical couplers. By employing this platform, discrete chiplets can be optimized independently and integrated into small-form-factor packages that are otherwise not possible with monolithic integration and provide a clear differentiation compared to other approaches currently in the industry.