The iNEMI Fiber Connector End-Face Inspection Project conducted research to quantify the correlation between fiber optic connector cleanliness and optical performance, with the goal of developing industry-standard criteria for cleaning and inspection of fiber optic connectors. Insertion Loss (IL) and Return Loss (RL), geometric parameters, and fiberscope images were measured for clean and contaminated connectors.

Experimental results and statistical analysis were used to develop an inspection criteria matrix for 1.25 mm ferrule and 2.5 mm SM UPC connectors. This article discusses iNEMI’s research results and the team’s recommendations, which provided a baseline for IPC-8497-1, “Cleaning Methods and Contamination Assessment of Optical Assembly.”

This article originally appeared in Global SMT & Packaging magazine 6.6 - June/July 2006.

Download the full article (free) in PDF format.

Tatiana Berdinskikh, PhD, (tberdins@celestica.com) is an Engineering Consultant with Celestica International (Toronto) and chair of the iNEMI Fiber Connector End-Face Inspection Project. She has co-authored more than 30 journal publications and conference papers in the field of optoelectronics and photonics, and is co-author of the book “Degradation of Semiconductor Light-Emitting Diodes and Lasers,” with Prof. T. Torchinskaya.

Sun-Yuan Huang, PhD, (sunyuan. huang@intel.com) is Senior Quality and Reliability Engineer for 10 Gps XFP transceivers at Intel Corporation (Freemont, Calif.). Dr. Huang has co-authored over 30 journal publications and conference papers and holds 16 US patents in the field of photonics and fiber optical communications.

Heather Tkalec (heather.tkalec@alcatel.com) is a Functional TestEngineer for Alcatel (Ottawa), supporting factories in Mexico and China, and is co-chair of the iNEMI Fiber Connector End-Face Inspection Project.

Douglas Wilson (dwilson@pvisys.com) is co-founder and President of PVI Systems, Inc. (Niantic, Conn.), and co-developer of the FiberQA‘-EFI software and hardware product family. He has co-authored several journalpublications and conference papers and holds four US patents.

Frank Y Zhang (frank.y.zhang@jdsu.com) is Global Senior Supplier Quality Engineer for JDS Uniphase (Milpitas, Calif.). He has more than 20 years experience in the fiber optics industry.

Keywords : fiber optic connectors, cleaning

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