  Silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) electro-optic (EO) modulators combine small
footprint with low operating voltage and hence low power dissipation, thus
lending themselves to on-chip integration of large-scale device arrays. Here we
demonstrate an electrical packaging concept that enables high-density
radio-frequency (RF) interfaces between on-chip SOH devices and external
circuits. The concept combines high-resolution $\mathrm{Al_2O_3}$
printed-circuit boards with technically simple metal wire bonds and is amenable
to packaging of device arrays with small on-chip bond pad pitches. In a set of
experiments, we characterize the performance of the underlying RF building
blocks and we demonstrate the viability of the overall concept by generation of
high-speed optical communication signals. Achieving line rates (symbols rates)
of 128 Gbit/s (64 GBd) using quadrature-phase-shiftkeying (QPSK) modulation and
of 160 Gbit/s (40 GBd) using 16-state quadrature-amplitudemodulation (16QAM),
we believe that our demonstration represents an important step in bringing SOH
modulators from proof-of-concept experiments to deployment in commercial
environments.
