November 2023
Sometimes less is more – A100 base system
ficonTEC is principally known for its highly capable assembly and test systems for photonic device manufacturing.
It is no secret that these systems often find their way into highly respected educational and research institutions around the world (in this case often as stand-alone systems) as well as into highly demanding high-volume industrial environments (then as greater or smaller production lines). One software, PCM, spans all usage scenarios.
So, is there a problem, you might ask?
To an extent, the path to ever better, more capable products is a common one – popular office text and number crunching software suites, personal computer chips with ever increasing performance, and smartphone devices that, while initially groundbreaking, now receive only incremental improvements. All of these products, and others, are subject to a common theme, namely that a significant proportion of the capabilities are not fully utilzed by an equally significant proportion of the users. At the same time, none of these products can be seen to stand still.
Of course, progress is generally a good thing. That said, there should perhaps not be any sacrifice of usability for those who do not need the latest and most progressive capability. To quote the common phrase, sometimes less is more – or at least the abilty to access that simplicity without it being buried in complexity.
It turns out this is exactly what some of our most valued customers have *not* been telling us, namely that depth of capability has been preventing dynamic system usage in simpler scenarios. For example, as a reconfigurable system for rapidly evolving environments. A.k.a. flexible repurposing.
Think of teaching in higher education. Think of hands-on industrial training for personal. Think of the demands of fundamental product and process development. And think of high-touch batch and low-volume manufacturing environments, jobshops included. Certainly not all of these organizations have the resources to afford highly qualified staff to frequently and competently reconfigure complex systems for flexible usage in the environments named above.
Enter ficonTEC’s new A100 – a modular photonic device assembly system for hands-on and high-touch optical align-&-attach duties, with focus placed on ease of reconfiguration and repurposing. Available with as little or as much complexity as you need.
Read more in the PDF available online …
