Reliability assurance of laser-fiber coupling in an undersea lightwave package

Reliability assurance of a laser package for undersea lightwave communication systems is discussed. The difficulty in assuring long life on recent-technology components such as a laser package is the lack of extensive experience with failure modes. For this reason, an extensive testing program was conducted to detect and assess the possibility of failure of the package in the lightwave system. The reliability methodology consists of four parts: (1) direct low-temperature aging, (2) high-temperature accelerated aging, (3) accumulation of device hours, and (4) environmental-mechanical overstress testing to destruction. Results show a more than adequate margin against failure over the 27-yr service life.<<ETX>>