MEMS packaging for micro mirror switches

A new packaging architecture is developed for the hybrid integration of free-space MOEMS (micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems) chip with a silicon micromachined submount. The submount is designed to accommodate various free-space MOEMS chips with minimal active optical alignment, thus reducing the packaging cost. The silicon submount has a central recess to place the MOEMS chip in, four V-grooves for optical fibers, and micropits for micro ball lenses, all bulk micromachined at the same time by a single anisotropic wet etching step. A corner compensation technique was employed to prevent erosion of the convex corners, where different geometries meet. With this packaging scheme, a “pick-and-drop” passive hybrid packaging of MOEMS devices becomes possible. The packaged MOEMS device can then be assembled into final product using standard integrated-circuit packages, such as pin-grid-array packages. The vibration test of a packaged micro mirror switch chip was performed to investigate the robustness of the packaging. Neither mechanical degradation or optical error was observed for vibrations up to 100 g´s and frequencies from 200 Hz to 10 kHz for over 24 hours