Automated Strip, Cleave & Insert

February 2021

Automated Strip, Cleave & Insert

ficonTEC provides automated stand-alone and in-line micro-assembly and testing solutions for the photonics industry, and is continually and actively involved in several internationally-supported initiatives, internally driven research projects as well as case-studies. As a result, both our Application Labs as well as our R&D group often have interesting challenges presented to them, sometimes as a pre-requisite to secure a contract, other times as a proof-of-concept or of capability.

The following results on stripping and cleaving of 12-fold fiber ribbon using a C02 laser have been created in close collaboration between ficonTEC Service GmbH, Nyfors Teknologi AB in Stockholm, Sweden and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (IOF) in Jena, Germany. The work was funded by the Eurostars Programme under grant # E!11443 Lasclad, together with financial support from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

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In parallel to this work, a fiber assembly set-up has been developed that performs automated connectorization of the same fiber ribbon. Following machine vision capture of the individual fibers, the insertion process can be smoothly and reliably completed, noting that the difference in diameter between the ferrules and the fibers is only 1µm.

ficonTEC’s solutions are realized as cutting-edge, semi- or fully-automated production systems for photonic devices, regardless of the device material and of the specific application the device is targeting. Our modular system architecture is additionally scalable, so that exploratory, proof-of-process assembly as well as high-volume assembly and test requirements are all addressable – and anything in between.

UPDATE: This topic has been covered in our webinar on Fiber Assembly, where we also present a concept for a complete system capable of the entire fiber ribbon production workflow. You can register for our webinars (live and view-on-demand) using the ‘Register’ button below.

If you have any interesting assembly challenges for us to solve, please get in touch …

 

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Related Blog: Apps Labs – Providing Access To Technology

The new WaferLine Test product line continues to be rolled out to the first customers worldwide. Starting from the first concept systems delivered in 2019, this first of 3 WLT variants now commonly provides combined electro-optical test for R&D development and low-volume, low-complexity test-&-qualify tasks. However, on the very near-horizon are variants 2 and 3, for batch testing of VCSELs and test-&-qualify of high-complexity integrated devices (think: co-packaging), respectively. Join CEO Torsten Vahrenkamp for an update on what ficonTEC is bringing to the photonics test-&-measurement eco-system.

 

Related Blog: Convergence in device manufacturing

Since we introduced our next-generation in-line systems back in 2018, these have been (obviously) available in in-line formats – simply put, by dividing a manufacturing process into appropriate tasks, one can daisy-chain correspondingly task-optimized production cells to form part of, or even an entire production line. At the same time, and true to our ‘Lab to Fab’ maxim, these same systems can be laid out as stand-alone production cells for use in R&D, for semi-automatic and for low-volume manufacturing, or for product/process development.

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Relevant machine types:

FIBERLINE & CUSTOMLINE

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Fiber-Optic Assembly, incl. F300

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Photonic Device Assembly Cell (stand-alone), AL2000