A new type of package incorporating a thin AlN heater for planar lightwave circuit devices

We have developed a new type of package for planar lightwave circuit (PLC) devices. An AlN heater was incorporated into a package in order to miniaturize the overall package size and to improve its thermal properties. In this paper, we evaluate the thermal and mechanical properties of the package. We successfully fabricated a thin package (8.5 mm in thickness), which is as thin as the butterfly package used for laser diodes. We observed that the temperature uniformity within the temperature-controlled area on the surface of the AlN heater was within 1/spl deg/C, and that the temperature stability of the surface of the AlN heater was within 0.4/spl deg/C when the ambient temperature was varied between -10/spl deg/C and 70/spl deg/C. We also found that our AlN heater had very good reliability. Fluctuations in the resistance of the AlN heater were within 0.3% after holding at 85/spl deg/C and 85% RH for 5000 hours, with or without a bias current (1 A) at the heater. Furthermore, this package had high durability against mechanical vibration, mechanical shock and thermal shock.