Back to results
US 11,693,200 B2Granted
Double bonding when fabricating an optical device
AssigneeCisco Technology, Inc.
InventorsVipulkumar K. Patel, Ravi S. Tummidi, Mark A. Webster
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments herein describe using a double wafer bonding process to form a photonic device. In one embodiment, during the bonding process, an optical element (e.g., a high precision optical element) is optically coupled to an optical device in an active surface layer. In one example, the optical element comprises a nitride layer which can be patterned to form a nitride waveguide, passive optical multiplexer or demultiplexer, or an optical coupler.
Claims19
A method, comprising:
- providing an optical device in a first semiconductor wafer;
- providing an optical element in a second semiconductor wafer;
- wafer bonding the first semiconductor wafer and the second semiconductor wafer to form a combined wafer, wherein bonding the first semiconductor wafer and the second semiconductor wafer optically couples the optical device to the optical element, and wherein the optical device is optically coupled to the optical element to form an optical adapter for transmitting an optical signal between the optical device and an external light source;
- removing a substrate corresponding to the second semiconductor wafer from the combined wafer;
- and
- performing a second wafer bonding process either (i) before forming the combined wafer or (ii) after removing the substrate corresponding to the second semiconductor wafer.
3 more elements
A method, comprising:
- providing an optical device in a first semiconductor wafer;
- providing an optical element in a second semiconductor wafer;
- performing a first wafer bonding process to bond the first semiconductor wafer and the second semiconductor wafer to form a combined wafer, wherein bonding the first semiconductor wafer and the second semiconductor wafer optically couples the optical device to the optical element;
- after the first wafer bonding process, removing a substrate corresponding to the second semiconductor wafer from the combined wafer;
- and
- after removing the substrate corresponding to the second semiconductor wafer, performing a second wafer bonding process to bond the combined wafer to a third semiconductor wafer.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.