L-Shaped Optical Module Chip Layout to Reduce Area Waste
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current optical/electrical modules, or optoelectronic modules, face challenges in reducing area waste and costs due to rectangular chip shapes that do not efficiently utilize transmitter and receiver areas, leading to increased module sizes and packaging costs.
Innovation Solution
The chip design incorporates a substrate with non-rectangular shapes, such as L-shaped configurations, allowing the transmitter and receiver regions to be optimized based on their respective areas, reducing area waste and enabling more efficient use of wafer space, with additional side walls and optical coupling interfaces to minimize light leakage and ensure signal strength.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If a rectangular chip shape is used, then the chip structure is simple and easy to manufacture, but area waste increases and manufacturing costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies asymmetry by changing the chip shape from a conventional rectangle to an L-shaped configuration. This asymmetric design allows the chip to better fit the actual functional requirements of the transmitter and receiver regions, eliminating unnecessary corner areas and reducing overall area waste while maintaining manufacturing feasibility through standard fabrication processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The L-shaped chip structure can be viewed as a segmentation of the rectangular wafer space. By dividing the chip into two perpendicular segments (the transmitter region and the receiver region), the design efficiently utilizes the available wafer area without requiring a full rectangular chip, thereby reducing material waste and cost.
2Device complexity
If a rectangular chip shape is used, then the chip structure is simple, but the chip area increases leading to larger module size
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs asymmetric L-shaped geometry to reduce chip area while keeping the structural complexity manageable. The L-shape is formed by removing one corner from a rectangle, which simplifies the design compared to complex irregular shapes while achieving significant area reduction. This asymmetric configuration allows the transmitter and receiver to be positioned optimally without requiring excessive chip area.
3Productivity
If more chips are manufactured from the same wafer area, then manufacturing efficiency increases, but chip area waste must be reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The L-shaped chip design represents a dimensional optimization of wafer space utilization. By transitioning from a rectangular footprint to an L-shape, the design effectively reconfigures the two-dimensional space to match the actual functional footprint of the components, thereby increasing the number of chips that can be manufactured from each wafer while minimizing area waste.
Data Source
AI summary
A chip includes a substrate, a transmitter, and a receiver. A quantity of side walls of the substrate is greater than four, the transmitter is located in a first region of the substrate, the receiver is located in a second region of the substrate, and a part of the substrate located in the first region has a first side wall on a side that is of the first region and that faces the second region, that is, a shape of the substrate is not a rectangle. In addition, a part of the first region that is located on a side that is of the first side wall and that is away from the second region is a protruding part of the first region relative to the second region, so that the first region and the second region form an abnormal-shaped region.