Patent ID: 8030569

Claim:
A light receiving or light emitting semiconductor module comprising multiple spherical semiconductor elements having light receiving or light emitting function comprising: positive and negative electrodes provided to each of said multiple semiconductor elements at opposite positions about the center thereof; a holding means for holding said multiple semiconductor elements in a manner that they are arranged in multiple columns and multiple rows with their conducting direction aligned in a column direction and multiple semiconductor elements are separable individually or in multiple groups; a conductive connection mechanism connecting in series the semiconductor elements in each column or in two adjacent columns among multiple columns of semiconductor elements and connecting in parallel the semiconductor elements in each row among multiple rows of semiconductor elements; conductive elastic members applying a mechanical pressing force in a column direction to maintain the serial connection of multiple columns of semiconductor elements by said conductive connection mechanism; said holding means has a tabular storage casing forming a fiat storage zone for storing multiple semiconductor elements and comprising multiple separable members, the storage casing has a pair of casing plates parting either side of said storage zone from the outside, and at least one of the casing plates is made of light transmissible glass or synthetic resin; and said holding means has multiple corrugated retention springs arranged nearly in parallel in said storage casing and comprising conductive band plates, multiple semiconductors in each row are held with their positive and negative electrodes clamped by a pair of corrugated retention springs, and said conductive connection mechanism comprises said multiple corrugated retention springs.