In the presented packaging technology for optical SMT-components, a standard non-optical transparent mould compound is used. The optical access is realized by a prepared aperture in the metallic lead frame of the exposed die pad, which also enables at the same time a high precision fixation to the optical fiber. This principle made it possible to realize an optical clear plane or lensed window as submount surface to the inner electro-optical chips for focused light emission from/to the single mode-fiber. In using an overall non-optic transparent mould compound for packaging, the optical path is completely enclosed in a transparent solid state chip environment. The application of an innovative flip-chip and chip-on-chip technology on the base and the consequent use of wafer processes for hybrid assembling and test made it possible to realize an efficient assembling technology of different multichip-configurations of optical passive and active chips in optical-SMT-packages, e.g. "optical-TSSOP10" on a standard TSSOP-production line. The realisation of a rational well adapted SMT-package for a 1300 nm VCSEL-component, as an O-TSSOP10-VCSEL with coupled SMF access, shows the importance of the optical SMT-packaging for fiber optical applications with transmission rates up to 10 Gbit/s.

In this paper the realization, development and production of 1.3μm vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSEL) with datacom suitable performance are presented. These low cost laser diodes are well suited for optical interconnect applications for LAN and MAN with transmission distances up to 15 km. The possibilities as well as the advantages and limits of shifting the wavelength from commercially available VCSEL emitting at 850nm to 1300nm are discussed. 1300nm VCSELs in a low cost SMD plastic package assembled into an intelligent SFP-module developed by Infineon Technologies are demonstrated.

For longer distances single mode coupled 1310 nm or 1550nm FP or DFB lasers are used. A couple of companies are working on the 1310 nm VCSEL to replace the FP and DFB lasers to reduce cost and gain performance. The main advantages of the 1310 nm VCSELs are lower chip cost, lower packaging cost, lower power consumption and a very low threshold current. The extremely short opto-mechanical design gives an excellent HF-performance for 2.5 Gbps up to 10 Gbps applications. The flexboard interconnection avoids mechanical overdeterminations.