Disclosure of Invention
The invention provides an electro-optical modulation device, which can effectively reduce the loss caused by the packaging yield and improve the yield of optoelectronic products.
An electro-optical modulation device includes an optical waveguide substrate, a plurality of electro-optical modulators, a selection drive circuit, and a controller. The optical waveguide substrate comprises an optical channel, and the optical channel provides at least one optical transmission path to transmit at least one optical beam. The plurality of electro-optical modulators are disposed on the at least one optical transmission path, and are optically coupled to the optical waveguide substrate, wherein at least 2 electro-optical modulators are disposed on each optical transmission path. The selection driving circuit is coupled with the plurality of electro-optical modulators. The controller is coupled to the selection driving circuit, and controls the selection driving circuit to select and drive one of the plurality of electro-optical modulators corresponding to each optical transmission path to perform optical modulation so as to generate a corresponding optical modulation signal.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the plurality of electro-optical modulators on the respective optical transmission paths are arranged in series.
In an embodiment of the invention, the optical channel has a light splitting structure, a plurality of light splitting paths are provided for splitting the light beam, and the electro-optical modulators are respectively disposed on the corresponding light splitting paths.
In an embodiment of the invention, the electro-optical modulation apparatus further includes an electrically controlled optical switch, which is coupled to the controller, disposed at the branch point of the light splitting structure, and controlled by the controller to switch and transmit the light beam to the light splitting path corresponding to the selected electro-optical modulator.
In an embodiment of the invention, the electrically controlled optical switch includes a mach-zehnder optical switch or an annular resonant cavity optical switch.
In an embodiment of the invention, the light splitting structure includes a Y-shaped branch pattern.
In an embodiment of the invention, the selection driving circuit includes a bias circuit, a resistor, and a switch circuit. The bias circuit provides a bias voltage. The resistor is coupled between the output end of the bias circuit and the drive circuit backflow bus. The switch circuit is coupled to the controller and the return bus, the plurality of electro-optical modulators are coupled in parallel between the bias circuit and the switch circuit, and the switch circuit is controlled by the controller to select one of the plurality of electro-optical modulators to be connected to the drive circuit return bus so as to select the electro-optical modulator for modulating the light beam.
In an embodiment of the invention, the electro-optic modulation apparatus further includes a circuit substrate, and the selection driving circuit and the controller are disposed on the circuit substrate.
In an embodiment of the invention, the optical waveguide substrate is disposed on a circuit substrate, and the plurality of electro-optical modulators are connected to the selection driving circuit and the controller Through a Through-Silicon Via (Through-Silicon Via).
In one embodiment of the present invention, each electro-optic modulator is partially laminated with or embedded in the optical waveguide substrate to optically couple the optical waveguide substrate.
Based on the above, in the embodiment of the invention, by configuring a plurality of electro-optical modulators in the optical transmission path, the controller may control the selection driving circuit to select one of the plurality of electro-optical modulators to perform optical modulation on the light beam transmitted by the optical transmission path, so as to generate the optical modulation signal. Therefore, when part of the electro-optical modulator cannot be used, other electro-optical modulators are used for carrying out optical modulation, so that the loss caused by the packaging yield can be effectively reduced, and the yield of optoelectronic products is improved.
In order to make the aforementioned and other features and advantages of the invention more comprehensible, embodiments accompanied with figures are described in detail below.
Detailed Description
Referring to fig. 1, fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an electro-optic modulation apparatus according to an embodiment of the invention. The electro-optical modulation apparatus may include an optical waveguide substrate SB1, an electro-optical modulator (electro-optical modulator) EAM1, an EAM2, aselection driving circuit 102, and acontroller 104. The optical waveguide substrate SB1 can be, for example, a silicon dioxide substrate, a iii-v semiconductor compound substrate, a silicon-on-insulator substrate, a polymer substrate, or a glass substrate, but not limited thereto. The optical waveguide substrate SB1 may include an optical channel P1 formed of an optical waveguide, and the optical channel P1 is used to provide an optical transmission path for transmitting the light beam L1. The electro-optic modulators EAM1, EAM2 may be bonded to the optical waveguide substrate SB1 in a die to wafer (die bonding) manner, for example, in a flip-chip bonding manner to the optical waveguide substrate SB 1. In the present embodiment, the electric optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 are disposed in series on the optical transmission path.
Theselection driving circuit 102 is coupled to the electro-optical modulators EAM1, EAM2 and thecontroller 104, and thecontroller 104 can control theselection driving circuit 102 to selectively drive the electro-optical modulator EAM1 or EAM2 of the optical transmission path to perform optical modulation on the light beam L1 to generate an optical modulation signal S1. The electro-optic modulators EAM1, EAM2 may be partially laminated with the optical waveguide substrate or embedded in the optical waveguide substrate to optically couple the optical waveguide substrate. Taking the electro-optical modulator EAM1 as an example, the electro-optical modulator EAM1 may be optically coupled in a manner partially overlapping with the optical waveguide substrate SB1, where overlapping means that the electro-optical modulator EAM1 is disposed above or below the optical channel of the optical waveguide substrate, and the electro-optical modulator EAM1 overlaps with at least a portion of the optical channel, where the optical beam or signal enters the electro-optical modulator via an interlayer conduction manner, such as evanescent coupling, from the optical channel into the electro-optical modulator, or from the electro-optical modulator into the optical channel, or may be optically coupled in a manner that the electro-optical modulator EAM1 is embedded in the optical waveguide substrate SB1, where embedding means that the electro-optical modulator EAM1 is disposed at about the same level as the optical channel, and the optical beam or signal enters one end of the electro-optical modulator from one end of the optical channel, or enters one end of the optical channel from one end of the electro-optical modulator, the optical channel is substantially parallel to the light emitting surface or the light incident surface of the electro-optical modulator, and when theselection driving circuit 102 selects the electro-optical modulator EAM1 to perform optical modulation, the light beam L1 from the optical waveguide substrate SB1 is modulated by the electro-optical modulator EAM1 to generate an optical modulation signal S1, which can then enter the optical waveguide substrate SB 1. In addition, the electro-optical modulator EAM2 that is not selected for optical modulation performs only the operation of optical transmission without optical modulation of the optical modulation signal S1.
Therefore, by arranging the electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 on the optical transmission path and selecting the EAM1 and EAM2 by the selection driving circuit to perform optical modulation on the light beam L1, when one of the electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 cannot be used, the other electro-optical modulator is used for performing optical modulation, so that the loss caused by the packaging yield is effectively reduced, and the yield of optoelectronic products is improved.
It should be noted that the electro-optical modulation apparatus of the present embodiment only includes two electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2, but the number of the electro-optical modulators is not limited thereto, and in other embodiments, more electro-optical modulators may be arranged in series on the optical transmission path. Further, the optical path P1 is not limited to include only 1 optical transmission path, and may include more optical transmission paths. As shown in fig. 3, the optical channel P2 of the optical waveguide substrate SB1 of fig. 3 may include 4 optical transmission paths, each of which may be respectively shown in fig. 1, and 2 electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 are disposed, and the 4 optical transmission paths may be respectively used to transmit light beams L1 to L4, and perform optical modulation through the corresponding electro-optical modulator EAM1 or EAM2 to generate optical modulation signals S1 to S4.
Theselection driving circuit 102 and thecontroller 104 of the electro-optical modulation device may be disposed on a circuit substrate, such as a printed circuit board. As shown in fig. 4, the optical waveguide substrate SB1 can be disposed on the circuit substrate SB2, and the electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 can be connected to theselection driver circuit 102 and thecontroller 104 on the circuit substrate SB2, for example, through TSV1 and TSV2, but not limited thereto. For example, in the embodiment of fig. 5, the electro-optic modulators EAM1 and EAM2 may also be connected to theselection driver circuit 102 and thecontroller 104 on the circuit substrate SB2 by, for example, wire bonding ML1 and ML 2.
Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of theselection driving circuit 102 according to an embodiment of the invention. Further, as shown in fig. 6, theselection driving circuit 102 may include abias circuit 602, a resistor R1, and a switch circuit 604, wherein the electro-optic modulators EAM1 and EAM2 are coupled between thebias circuit 602 and the switch circuit 604 in parallel, the switch circuit 604 is further coupled to a driving circuit return bus RB1, and the resistor R1 is coupled between the output terminal of thebias circuit 602 and the driving circuit return bus RB 1. Thebias circuit 602 is used to generate bias voltages to provide the voltages required for the electro-optic modulators EAM1 and EAM2 to perform optical modulation. Thecontroller 104 may control the switching circuit 604 to select one of the electro-optic modulators EAM1 and EAM2 to be connected to the drive circuit return bus RB1 to select the electro-optic modulator that modulates the light beam L1. For example, when electro-optic modulator EAM1 is selected for optical modulation,controller 104 controls switch circuit 604 to select the connection of electro-optic modulator EAM1 to drive circuit return bus RB 1.
It should be noted that the above embodiments are described by taking the case where the electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 are disposed in series on the optical transmission path, but in some embodiments, the electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 may also be disposed in parallel, for example. For example, fig. 7 is a schematic configuration diagram of an electro-optical modulator according to an embodiment of the invention, in which the optical channel P3 of the optical waveguide substrate SB1 is a light splitting structure, such as a Y-branch structure, as shown in fig. 7. The Y-branch structure may provide two light-splitting paths to split the light beam L1, that is, the optical transmission path may include two light-splitting paths that split the light beam L1 into two light beams.
The electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 may be respectively disposed on two light-splitting paths provided by the Y-branch pattern, and modulate the light beam on one of the light-splitting paths according to the selection control of theselection driving circuit 102 to generate the light modulation signal S1. Taking the embodiment of fig. 7 as an example, theselection driving circuit 102 selects the electro-optical modulator EAM1 to perform optical modulation on the light beam on the partial light path to generate the optical modulation signal S1, but not limited thereto, and in other embodiments, theselection driving circuit 102 may also select the electro-optical modulator EAM2 to perform optical modulation on the light beam on the partial light path to generate the optical modulation signal S1. Similarly, by respectively configuring the electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 on the two light-splitting paths, when one of the electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2 is not used, the other electro-optical modulator can be used for performing light modulation, so as to effectively reduce the loss caused by the packaging yield and improve the yield of the optoelectronic product.
In addition, the electro-optical modulation apparatus of the present embodiment only includes two electro-optical modulators EAM1 and EAM2, but the number of the electro-optical modulators is not limited thereto, and in other embodiments, a plurality of electro-optical modulators connected in series may be disposed on the optical splitting path. In addition, the optical channel P3 is not limited to include only 2 optical splitting paths, the optical transmission path may include more optical splitting paths, or include more optical transmission paths with a plurality of optical splitting paths, and the electro-optical modulation device may include an electro-optical modulator for each optical splitting path.
Fig. 8 is a schematic configuration diagram of an electro-optic modulator according to another embodiment of the present invention. The difference between this embodiment and the embodiment of fig. 7 is that the embodiment of fig. 8 further includes an electrically controlledoptical switch 802, which can be disposed at the branch point of the spectroscopic structure. The electrically controlledoptical switch 802, which may be a mach-zehnder optical switch or an annular cavity optical switch, is coupled to thecontroller 104, and is controlled by thecontroller 104 to switch and transmit the light beam L1 to the corresponding splitting path of the selected electro-optical modulator, so as to prevent the light intensity of the light beam on the splitting path from being greatly reduced due to splitting, thereby reducing the quality of optical communication. For example, in the embodiment shown in fig. 8, thecontroller 104 may control the electrically controlledoptical switch 802 to switch and transmit the light beam L1 to the electro-optical modulator EAM1 selected for optical modulation, so as to increase the light intensity of the optical modulation signal S1 generated by the electro-optical modulator EAM1 and ensure the quality of optical communication.
In summary, in the embodiments of the invention, the controller may control the selection driving circuit to select one of the plurality of electro-optical modulators to perform optical modulation on the light beam transmitted by the optical transmission path to generate the optical modulation signal by configuring the plurality of electro-optical modulators in the optical transmission path. Therefore, when part of the electro-optical modulator cannot be used, other electro-optical modulators are used for carrying out optical modulation, so that the loss caused by the packaging yield can be effectively reduced, and the yield of optoelectronic products is improved.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to the above embodiments, it should be understood that various changes and modifications can be made therein by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.