Integration of spot-size converters (SSCs) with semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) that improves chip-fiber optical coupling is inevitable for realizing high performance SOA modules. In this paper SSCs that can be easily integrated with SOAs and have little influence on the polarization sensitivity have been studied. We found that polarization insensitive active width-tapered SSCs can be realized by an optimum waveguide design of tensile-strained bulk structures. The SOA module exhibited large fiber-to-fiber gain (> 19 dB), small polarization sensitivity (< 0.4 dB), high fiber-coupled saturation output power (> +11.7 dBm) and record low module noise figure (< 6.3 dB) for the signal wavelength range of 1530-1560 nm.