Industry Compatible Embossing Process for the Fabrication of Waveguide-Embedded Optical Printed Circuit Boards

Abstract

We demonstrate a cost-effective embossing process for the fabrication of waveguide-embedded optical printed circuit boards (OPCBs). The process involves the application of a polydimethylsiloxane mold for the production of polymer waveguides on a copper-clad FR4 substrate followed by the conventional lamination process. The embossing process is carefully tailored for the commercial polymer materials that are developed specifically to withstand the high temperature and high pressure environment during lamination. With this process, we are able to produce highquality waveguide-embedded OPCBs with good repeatability. Our typical OPCB samples, each of which consists of 12 130-mm long fully embedded channel waveguides with a core size of approximately 50 × 50 μm and a pitch of 250 μm, show an average optical loss in the range 0.16-0.22 dB/cm at the wavelength 850 nm. The OPCBs survive the reflow process at 245 • C with a small change in the optical loss. The embossing process can be readily integrated with the existing PCB manufacturing process and thus offers a practical solution to mass production of OPCBs.Index Terms-Optical interconnect, optical polymer, optical printed circuit board (OPCB), polymer waveguide, waveguide fabrication.

Image crowd fusion mechanism based on optical embedded system

“…The surface integral and nonlinear transformation of the spot image concentration IC spot could be obtained by formula (2). Light curve LR spot can be obtained by formula (3).…”

“…The technique is based on the image of the specific optical characteristics of [2] image is defined as a number of independent image range. It is widely used in image transmission, monitoring and identification, and video processing [3]. However, the optical principle of embedded image analysis can effectively improve the accuracy of image recognition [4], but there is the problem of low efficiency and high computational complexity.…”

Compact Three-Dimensional Polymer Waveguide Mode Multiplexer

“…We used the polymer materials, EpoCore and EpoClad (Micro Resist Technology GmbH), as the core and cladding materials, respectively, which have excellent processability by photolithography [30], [31], [34], and applied the spin-coating process to realize the proposed 3D coupling structure.…”

“…An imprinting process suitable for mass production of optical printed circuit boards with such polymer has been demonstrated, which involves both high pressure (23 kp/cm 2 ) and high temperature (up to 245°C) [31]. The vertical coupler structure used in our design can be formed to a high precision easily with polymer material, but is difficult (or impossible) to form with other popular waveguide material systems (e.g., silicon photonics).…”