A Bidirectional Single Fiber 1.

25 Gb/s Optical Transceiver Module with SFP Package using PLC

T. Haslumoto, A. Kanda, R. Kasalnml, I . Ogawa_Y. Shuto. M. Yanagisawa. A. Ohki. S. Mino: M. Islui: Y. Suzuki; R. Nagasc. and T. Kitagawa NTT Photonics Laboratories, Nippon Tclcgmph and Telephone Colporation 2 3-1 Morinosato_Wakamiya. Atsugi-Slu, Kan;ig;i~va-Ken, 4 3 4 1 98 Japan E-mail: t-liasli~aecl.ntt.cojp A bstract We dcveloped a bidirectional optical transceiver rnodulc using a super high refractive index difference planar lighhvave circuit for low cost bidirectional and Iugh bit rate operation. We applied this technolou to a Gb/s single fibcr small-fonn-factor pluggable module.
1. Introduction

higher bit rate operations such as the Gb Ethemet or Gb optical passive networks (PON), and we adopt it for this work. The configuration is shown in Fig. 1
MonitorpD).31 p m LD

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Recent progrcss on access nehwrk systems has increased the connnunication bit rate lo sevcral Gb/s. Now_a low cost optical transccivcr is required for optical access nchvork systems. Specifically_ a bidirectioual single libcr optical transccivcr is expected to be an cffective way of reducing system cost. There are certain approaches to designing the optical transceiver configuration that will enable us to achieve such a low cost, bidirectional and Gb/s network system. Surface mount integration on an optical hybrid integration plalfomi tbat includes an optical and electrical wiring circuit is particularly attractive. because it allows us to combine various desircd optical active and passive functions on any scale using the samc fabrication and assembly techniques. Morcover. this approach makes it possible to mass produce compactly integrated optical circuits and realize low cost optical inodules [1](21[31. We have developed optical hybrid integration technolop with a planar lightwave circuit (PLC) platform, where we realize an optical circuit in which an optical semiconductor die is directly attached to the PLC platform with solder bonding 111141151. We have already developed a 156 Mbls bidirectional single fiber optical transceiver using this technology [61[7]. Although the realization of a lower cost optical transceiver will require us to reduce the module scale, we must also consider the optical and electrical crosstalk between the transmitter LD and the receiver PD in the sinall module. especially when we use a high (Gb/s) bit rate. In this paper. we descnibe an approach that uses a lugh contrast refractive index (A) silica PLC (super high A PLC or SHA PLC) for a small size optical bidirectional transceiver and r c p r t thc advantages of this SHA PLC as regards crosstalk suppression. As an application of this approach, we also describe a bidirectional single fiber 1.25 Gb/s optical transceiver inodule using the PLC with a small fonn factor pluggable (SF'P) package. 2. Optical circuit for high bit rate bidirectional optical transceiver We have already proposed a l.3l/l.5Spn wavelength division multiplexing bidirectional transcciver for 156 Mbls ATM-PON 171. In terms of its optical passive function and performance, this optical circuit configuration can be used for
0-7803-7991-5/03/$17.0002003 IEEE.

PLC platform

Multi layered print wiring b a r d

/
c

Pre&

Post-amp

Small Form Factor Pluggable Package

Fig.1 Module configuration It includes a WDM circuit on a PLC substrate with a dielcclric thin film filter installed in an cross branch optical waveguide circuit. In addition bare chips of a 1.31 l m transmitter LD and a 1.55 vm receiver PD are mounted on opposite sides of the substrate since the uncoupled light from the LD can be prevented from entering the PD by positioning a WDM filter between them. In this work. the module has a single MU receptacle type optical interface and is installed in the SFP package. The MU ferrule is connected to the PLC with a short fiber fixed in a V-groove fabricated on the substratc. The LD; PD and MU ferrule are mounted on the PLC substrate simply from above and this is suited to mass production. Bare dics or the ICs and the PLC substrate are mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB) designed to isolate the LD and PD electrically and thus achieve compact integration. Although the basic design of the optical module remains the same? the problem of optical and electrical crosstalk becomes more severe because of the high bit rate operation and t k need for more compact integration. We use an SHA PLC to overcome this problem. We adopted an SHA PLC for the optical circuit and optimized the electrical circuit design. Io this paper. we focus inaid? on a description of our approach using the SHA PLC.

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2-1. SHA PLC for optical transceiver

Using an SHAPLC provides two main advantages as regards fabrication. One is compactness and the other is simplified substrate iabrication. Thcse hvo advantages reduce the cost and allow mass production. An SHA PLC can provide a small optical circuit with a bending radius of 2 nun when the refractive index difference (A) between the core and cladding is 1.5%_while the bending radius of a conventional circuit is limited to about 15 nun Figure 2 shows the PLC platform substrate for an optical transceiver. The SHA PLC allows us to reduce the chip to one third its convcntional size.
ConventionalA = 0.45% 18 x 2.2 mm

. .

. .

structure to allow ns to adjust the optical axes of the senuconductor optical device chips and the waveguide in the height direction. This is because the center of the PLC core is too high above the silicon substrate surface for us to use a thin film deposited on tlie substrate to adjust the PLC core height to the center of the active layer of the semiconductor optical device chip. In such cases. we usually use a PLC formed on a terraced silicon substrate fabricated by wet etching to kecp the undercladding thickness above I 0 p n However. by using the SHA PLC?w e reduce tlie required undercladding thickness by 20% lo a height that allows us to adjust the height difference by controlling tlic thickness of the solder film which is deposited on the PLC substrate to bond the semiconductor optical device clups. This eliminates the need to form a silica on terrace silicon s t ~ ~ c t u rand simplifies the fabrication e process.
2-2. Optical coupling and crosstalk The oplical coupling between the PLC. the LD and tlie PD mounted on tlie platform, between the PLC and the optical fiber: and between the cross waveguides at the WDM filter detemune the optical passive performance of the optical transceiver. Using the SHA PLC Ius advantages and drawbacks as rerards oulical conding.

This work A = 1.5% 12x1 mm

Fig. 2 PLC substrate size

0.5

P 9
m
0 -

- 0.4 E
g 0.3
Si substrate

c 0 .c

8) 0.2
m a

0
0.1
U

-3

-2

-1

Displacement [mm]
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Underdadding thickness W [mm]

Fig. 4 Coupling tolerance between PLC and LD

Fig. 3 Loss dependence on cladding thickness

The other advantage for substrate fabrication is that the SHA PLC makes the substrate structure simple and this makes it possible lo eliminate tlie silica on terraced silicon S ~ N C ~ U R [8]. Figure 3 show the calculated propagation excess loss dependence on the undercladding thickness (W) and the refractive index difference (A) between the SHA PLC and a conventional PLC. When we require a propagation loss of less than O.ldB/cm the undercladding thickness is 7.5pm for the SHA PLC and 9 . 5 for the conventional PLC. ~ The loss is mainly the result of the optical field penetrating the silicon substrate. The PLC must have a thick undercladding to prevent this. Optical hybrid integration using a PLC involves flip-chip mounting a semiconductor optical device chip on the PLC substrate. When we use a conventional PLC, this requires a silica on terraced silicon 280

Fig. 5 Horizontal alignment displacement

2003 Electronic Components and Technology Conference

A hpical advantage is the improvement in the coupling between the PLC and tlie LD as a result of the snnller mode field of the PLC. Figure 4 shows tlie calculated Gaussian bemi coupling corresponding to Uie mode fields of the PLC and LD used in tlus work, where the field diameters are 7. 5: and 2.2 Iim for the conventional PLC, the SHA PLC and the LD: respectivel>-. We expect the coupling efficiency to be iniprovcd from a 1.7 dEl loss to about a 2.5 d loss. However. ! 3 as shown in Fig. 1, the I dB down coupling tolerance bccomes severe and requires a vev precise mounting technique. Figure 5 shows the alignnient displaceinent of the optical devices on the PLC. The semiconductor devices were mounted on Uie PLC simply by aligning them in the horizontal direction because the height of the devices was determined by the platform surface. The technique involves passive alignment using the pattem recognition of marks formed on the PLC and the semiconductor device chip. The figure shows the displacement of the marks after mounting. The 3 0 value (3 times the standard deviation) was less than 1 pm. The points arc concentrated in the first quadrant because we obsenzed only the repeatable accuraq of our mounting system. where we did not feed the displacement data back into the system to adjust the center. Therefore. the displacement of the avcmge center can be cancelled out by using a numerical offset with the alignment positioning data. We can expcct an alignment accuraq of 1 pin and this accuracy is acceptable even to the SHA PLC. However. in contrast to the improvement in tlic PLC-LD coupling. the coupling betwccn the PLC and the optical fiber and the insertion loss of the cross circuit at the WDM filler were degraded by the higher index difference because of the smaller mode field spot size. Table 1 shows the effect of optical coupling on the optical crosstalk. The crosstalk could be described as the optical crosstalk power divided by the optical output power and the receiver responsivih. Tlus means each coupling part listed in the table affects the crosstalk more than twice as shown by the connecting lines in the table. The optical crosstalk light is stray light originating from the uncoupled light at both the LD-PLC optical coupling and the WDM filter. The output power is related lo th e total LD-PLC coupling, the filter circuit loss and the fiber-PLC coupling. The responsivity is related to the filter circuit loss and the fiber-PLC coupling. To realize a low crosstalk optical module, we need lo improve the optical coupling at each pan. To keep the PLC substrate fabrication simple, we adopt an expanded core with a width of 15 pm in the horizontal direction at the PLC-fiber and cross waveguide of the WDM filter as shown in Fig. 6. In addition, the WDM filter and optical fiber are installed with an accuracy of 1 pm. The WDM filler is simply inserted in a groove cut in the cross circuit with a thin dicing blade. The optical fiber is fixed in a V - g m v e that is formed on the silicon substrate of the PLC platform by wet etching. By adjusting the fabrication conditions, tlie silicon V-groove was fabricated in the PLC substrate with an accuracy of better than 1 pin.

Crosstalk light power

Element
Crosstalk lightOutput power

Related Origin

Countermeasure
SHDPLC

LD-PLC wupling loss

WDM circuit loss

Responsivity

Fiber-PLC wupling loss

Double influence

' " -

Expanded core

Table I Optical crosstalk and countenneasure circuit

WDM filter

Optical fiber ___,

Expanded core width region

Fig. 6 Core width expanded region

0
-20

9
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-40

m I-60
0

-80

-100

-120

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Frequency [GHr]

Fig. 7 Electrical crosstalk

2-3. Electrical crosstalk

TI#: reduction in the size of the PLC substrate reduces the distance between the transmitter LD and the receiver PD and this increases the crosstalk between them. Moreover, the elcctrical crosstalk increases greatly as the frequency increases. Figure 7 shows the frequency dependence on the LD-PD distance and substratc size. We measured samples where we connected semi-rigid coaxial cables lo an LD and PD pad terminated with a 50R resistance and fLved thein on a Cu laminated board. The trace lines for different LD-PD distances are shown as dashed lines, where the measured samples are the same size as a conventional
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substrate. These results show that thcrc is a large dcpendence on distancc. For examnplc, the required minimum transceiver sensitiviv for the Gb-Ethemet (IEEE 802.3) is -19 dBin when operating at 1.25 Gbls, and this rcquires Uie clcctrical crosstalk to be less than about -70 dB estimated roughly from an electrical crosstalk of -38 dB converted from an optical crosstalk power of -19 dB at 0 dBm operating peak output powcr and a Q value of 8.4 dB for a bit error rate of 10. 171. Figure 8 shows the dependcnce of the electrical crosstalk on the LD-PD distance at 1 GHz derived from Fig. 8 (connected rhombus). This means that Uic required LD-PD distance is more than 5 uun.
I

Fig. 9 Photograph of transceiver

The package has an MU receptacle type optical interface. The MU ferrule has a shot7 optical fiber that is aligned passively with the PLC by using a V-groove formed by wet etching on the PLC silicon substrate as shown in Fig. I . The optical fiber is installed between the V groove and a cover glass and fixcd in place with a UV curable adhesivc. The optical circuit configuration is the same as that described in Sec. 2. The optical gaps between Uie LD, PD and optical fiber and the PLC are filled with a transparent resin. We detenuined an LD and PD distance of 8 mni with a 2 inn1 margin from Fig8 taking Uie fabrication yield into consideration. The bare chips of an LD driver IC; a transimpedance IC and a limiter IC are fixed directly on the PCB. The large drive current from the driver IC causes noise and this noise rcaches the rcceiver circuit across both the PLC substrate and the PCB and degrades the receivcr perfonnancc and becomes severe as the drive frequency increases. We therefore adopted a multi-layered PCB and used an electromagnetic field simulation to confirm that an LD-PD distance of 8 ium presewes the receiver perfonnance. To reduce tlie electrical noise, we directly CoMeCted tlie ICs and the pad fabricated on the PLC for the LD and PD with wire-bonding. The passive optical performance is suinmarized in Table 2. The filter inseltion losses were 1.1 dB and the coupling loss between the single mode fiber (SMF) of the MU ferrule and the PLC was 0.7 dB.These values are comparable to those of a conventional PLC with a degradation of less than 0.5 dB: which is caused by tlie absence of spot size conversion perpendicular to tbe substrate. The coupling loss between the LD and PLC was 3.1 dE% including a 0.5 dB excess loss. Figure 10 shows the module output power. Since the Gb Etbemet standard requires a maximum -3 dB output power, tlus good optical coupling provides low power consumption by a drive current of less than 20 mA at 0 dBm output power. which corresponds to a peak power of -3 dBin modulation. The responsivity was 0.6 A N . The degradation was 2 dB and consisted of the SMF-PLC and WDM filter inseltion loss. The optical crosstalk was -32.4 dB. This value is good enough for the minimum sensitivity of -19 dBm required by the Gb Etheniet standard. When the coupling efficiencies of the LDPLC, PD-PLC, SMP-PLC and filter are each additionally d e p d e d by 0.5 dB,according to Table 1: 1.5 dB additional
282

-90 0

5 10 Distance [mm]

15

Fig. 8 Electrical crosstalk and LD-PD distance

In addition to the distance dependence, we should consider the dependence of the electrical crosstalk on the PLC substrate size. For Gbls operation_ the signal wavelength is close to the substrate size of the small PLCs used for the transceiver. and so the PLC substrate size is considered lo influence the electrical crosstalk. We investigated this phenomenon. Each dashed line in Fig. 7 has a peak of about 6 GHz independent of the LD-PD distance. This means that the peaks are the resonance of the signal to the PLC substrate. We suspect that the tail of the resonance reaches the freaquecy of tlie module operation and degrades the crosstalk since the resonance is broad. nus can be confirmed by changing the size of the PLC substrate. The thick line in Fig. 7 is the trace line of the small substrate PLC used in this work. The peak has shifted to 8 GHz_the tail has also shifted slightly, and the crosstalk is improved by about 3 dB at 1 GHz. Tlus becomes more effective as the frequency increases. For example, the improvement is 5 dB at 2 GHz. This means the crosstalk could be affected by the resonance and the influence could be suppressed by adopting a small substrate such as an SHA PLC substmte.
3 Optical module and characteristics . Based on the above consideration, we fabricatcd a bidirectional single fiber 1.25 Gb/s optical transceiver module. The module packaging was fabricated according to the small fonn factor pluggable package, which is provided by a multi source agreemcnt, as shown in Fig. 1 and in the photograph in Fig. 9.

2003 Electronic Components and Technology Conference

loss g i v x an optical crosstalk of -28.4 dB and degrades the receiver minimum sensitivit?. around less than -19 dBm. This could be successfully eliininated by improving the coupling with a SHA PLC.

1 Summary .

Coupling loss.

Responsivty

We improved and adjusted the optical coupling efficiencies of the components of an optical circuit using an SHA PLC as well as reducing. the PLC substrate size and simplifying substrate fabrication. This also suppressed the resonance of the electrical signal. Taking the dependence of the electrical crosstalk on the LD-PD distance into consideration. we designed a PLC and adopted an MU receptacle type bidirectional Gb Ethernet transceiver with an SFP package. The module performed well and satisfied the requirement for Gb Ethemet. This indicates that an optical module with a PLC constitutes a simple and low cost optical assembly as well as providing a high perfonnance optical circuit module.
Acknowledgments The authors thank Y . Hibino. H. Toba for useful discussions and encouragement. References 1. T. Hashimoto and I Ogawa, Optical hybrid integration using planar lightwave circuit platform, Proceedings of SPIE?Vol. 4652: pp. 5847; 2002 2. M. Oguro. A .Goto, N. Kitamura? Y . Fukutomi. Y . Sakamoto, T. Masuta and T. Tanmra, 1.25Gb/s WDM Bi-Directional Transceiver Module Using DFB-LD and PLC with Spot-Size Conversion Region Proc. Electron. Compon. Technol. Cod. 2002, Vol.52, pp. 305-310 2002 3 . J Goodrich, A Silicon Optical Bench Approach to L o w Cost High Speed Transceivers, Proc. Electron. Compon. Teclmol. C o d . 2001, VoI.Sl_pp. 238-241 2001 4. Y. Yanlada, A. Takagi, 1. Ogawa. M. Kawachi and M. Kobayaslu. Silica-based optical waveguide on terraced silicon substrate as hybrid integration platform. Electron Lett.. vol. 29, no. S_pp. 414146_1993. 5 . T. Hashimoto, Y Nakasuga, Y Yamada. H Terui? M Yanagisaw, Y Akahori. Y Tohmori. K Kato, and Y Suzuki, Multichip optial hybrid integration technique with planar lightwave circuit platfonn, J. Lightwave Technol., Vol. 16,No. 7,pp. 1249-1258, 1998 6. T. Kurosaki, T. Hashimoto, N. Ishihara, Y . Suzuki, M. Nakamura, Y. Tohmori. J. Yoshida, H. Kimura and H. Toba. 1.3/1.55 pm full-duplex WDM optical transceiver modules for ATM-PON (PDS) systems using PLChybrid-integration and CMOS-IC technologies, IEICE Trans. Electron., Vol.E82-C, No.8. pp.1465-1474, 1999. 7. T. Hashimoto, Kurosaki, M. Yanagisawa, Y S u d i , Y Akahori, Y Inone, Y Tohmori, Ka Kato, Y Yamada, N Ishihara, Ku Kato and Y Yamad3 A 1.3/1.55 wavelength-division multiplexing optical module using planar lightwave circuit for full duplex operation, I. Lightwave Technol., Vol. IS_No. 11, pp. 1541-1547. 8. T. Yamada, T. Hashimoto, T. Ohyama, Y. Akahori, A. Kaneko, K. Kato, R. Kasahara, and M. Ito, New planar lightwave circuit (PLC) platform eliminating Si terraces and its application to opto-electronic hybrid integrated modules, IEICE Trans. Electron., Vol.E84-C, No.5. pp. 685-692,2001.

Table 2 Module characteristics

10 8

T 6 E
0 4 a 2
0

20

40

60

80

100

If [mA]

Fig. 10 Optical output power Figure 11 s h o w the receiver performance of the module. The minimmn sensitivity for an NRZ signal of 1.25 Gbls was -19dBm at a bit error rate of 10~. The power penalty of the lull duplex operation compared with receiver only operation was 2 dB. This minimum sensitivity indicates that the crosstalk was successfully suppressed and satisfies the Gb Ethemet requirement. 10.~

.a l m

10-6

e
L

, 10-8
m
10-10 10-12 -26 -24 -22 -20 -18 -16 -14 -12 -10 Received Optical Power (dBm)

Fig 11. Receiver sensitivity

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2003 Electronic Components and Technology Conference