Advanced Low Cost Packaging Platform for Compound Semiconductor Applications

Technological advances in communication and data transfer are increasingly visible all around us, in our homes, our workplaces and also in the businesses and organisations that we depend on. In the last 5 years we have started to take our smartphones, tablets, video calling, Smart TVs, social media, and cloud storage for granted. With our rapidly increasing use of Internet technology, we are experiencing (and forecasting) unprecedented and unrelenting bandwidth growth. As Internet users, we demand more bandwidth, but we are unwilling to incur further cost. The number of datacenters (DCs) is increasing to meet this bandwidth demand. DCs are interconnected using optical communications modules. Modules must be compact and cost effective to enable ‘price friendly’ bandwidth. Project ALPACKA (Advanced Low cost PACKAging for compound semiconductors) will develop a design concept for an fully automated, low cost and compact packaging platform that will enable cost effective and compact Indium Phosphide (InP) Photonics Integrated Circuit (PIC) optical communication modules.