System-on-a-package (SOP) module development for a digital, RF and optical mixed signal integrated system

One highly integrated mixed-signal testbed has been developed to demonstrate the concept and realization of advanced System-on-a-Package concept. This experimental system, called Intelligent Network Communicator (INC), deals with three different status of the signals, digital, RF and optical, in a single packaging platform. The INC transmits and receives the high-speed digital signal and wireless signal over the embedded optical waveguide channel. After three years of development efforts, the system has been fabricated by utilizing advanced packaging and assembly processes and full functionality has been demonstrated successfully. Before the final test, each of the sub-blocks has been separately developed and tested. The test results clearly show that the developed system performance meets the design goals. The digital block generated up to 3.2 Gbps of data stream, the RF block had less than -1.5dB of insertion loss up to 6 GHz and the optical block achieved 10Gbps throughput over the embedded optical waveguide built on the low-cost organic substrate.