March 2021
Business/Corporate News
VLC Photonics receives new Wafer-level Test system from ficonTEC
In order to support the growth of the Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) market and be able to timely serve the scaling of its customers when moving to engineering and pilot production stages, VLC Photonics S.L. is now one of a growing list of established PIC eco-system innovators to receive one of ficonTEC‘s new Wafer-level Test (WLT) systems. The WLT delivered to VLC incorporates dual alignment of optical pick-ups that can be fast-actively aligned to optical I/O ports at on-wafer PIC devices. The addition of this system to their in-house portfolio of equipment and tools for PIC characterization and testing will complement the services offered up to now on a die level.
VLC Photonics, based in Valencia, Spain, is a fabless photonic design house, recently part of the Hitachi High-Tech group, offering varying services for organizations seeking to exploit the advantages of photonic integration. These services nowadays cover all aspects of PIC development, from initial consultancy to design, manufacturing, test, and packaging. For this purpose, VLC has continually grown a global portfolio of customers and additionally partnered with renowned foundries and packagers to successfully serve a broad spectrum of applications in communications, sensing, quantum optics, biophotonics, instrumentation and other sectors.
Just as for its other services, the new WLT capability can be offered for a comprehensive range of on-wafer component types, irrespective of the material system. This includes integrated photonics-enabled elements and devices based on the SOI, SiN and InP material systems, as well as components based on planar lightwave circuits (PLC). The component size can lie anywhere in the range from 2×2 to 20×20 mm², while the wafer-handling system present in the WLT is compatible with single dies and wafer sizes from 3” up to 12”.
Contact usHaving already worked with several Fortune 500 and equivalent corporations, as well as emerging start-ups and world-recognized researchers, Iñigo Artundo, CEO at VLC Photonics, foresees particular benefits emerging through the addition of the WLT system: “Back-end packaging and test has always been acknowledged to be the main bottleneck when industrializing PIC-based products, and most of our developments and acquisitions in recent years are designed to help our customers succeed in facing the challenges associated with PIC testing.”
Torsten Vahrenkamp, CEO at ficonTEC, is equally pleased with this development: “We have worked intensively on our WLT capability over the last two years, and we are really excited to see this technology finding acceptance amongst commercial PIC service sector leaders such as VLC Photonics. Notwithstanding, this is just a momentary snapshot of where we are going with the WLT systems, and we are continuing to collaborate with leading partners in specific technology areas to provide efficient mixed-signal electro-optical testing and high-volume capability in the near-term”.
The WLT tool was received in November 2020 and it is now in production at the facilities of VLC Photonics in the UPVfab cleanroom. For more information, please contact VLC Photonics or ficonTEC directly.
About VLC Photonics
VLC Photonics is a fabless company offering different services and solutions to exploit the advantages of photonic integrated circuits. From a high-level system perspective, VLC Photonics can assess the feasibility of integrating any optical system into a photonic chip, and provide cost estimates, expected performances and foreseeable limitations. VLC Photonics‘ services cover the whole integration process, from the photonic modelling, simulation, design and layout, to the prototyping, packaging, die and wafer-level testing or certification if needed. Additionally, VLC Photonics can provide stand-alone outsourced design services, foundry process design kit (PDK) development, and fab reports. From November 2020 VLC Photonics is part of the Hitachi High-Tech group.
For more information, visit www.vlcphotonics.com
About ficonTEC
ficonTEC is the recognized market leader for automated packaging and testing machine systems for high-end opto-electronic components and integrated photonic devices. Considerable process capability and dedicated assembly technologies have been accumulated over more than two decades of serving the needs of a broad selection of industry segments – including telecom and datacom, high-power diode laser assembly, IoT-conform sensor devices from bio-med to automotive, micro-optical modules, fiber-optics and more. ficonTEC’s flexible and scalable Industry 4.0 automation options enable customized assembly and test solutions suitable for early device development, for new product introduction (NPI), and all the way up to high-volume manufacturing (HVM) – regardless of whether for contract manufacturing or for in-house corporate R&D and production.
For more information, visit www.ficontec.com