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.