News: Optoelectronics
9 March 2021
VLC Photonics receives new wafer-level test system from ficonTEC
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, in November Spanish PIC design house VLC Photonics S.L. (a spin-off of the Universitat Politècnica de València) took delivery of a new wafer-level test (WLT) system from ficonTEC Service GmbH of Achim, Germany, which provides automated packaging and testing machine systems for high-end optoelectronic components and integrated photonic devices. The WLT tool is now in production in VLC’s UPVfab cleanroom.
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 the system to VLC’s in-house portfolio of equipment and tools for PIC characterization and testing will complement the services offered up to now on a die level.
Picture: VLC Photonics’ CTO David Domenech and ficonTEC production engineer Tim Kluge after installation of the new WLT system.
Acquired last November by Tokyo-based Hitachi High-Tech group, VLC offers services for organizations seeking to exploit the advantages of photonic integration. These services now cover all aspects of PIC development, from initial consultancy to design, manufacturing, test and packaging. For this purpose, VLC has grown a global portfolio of customers and additionally partnered with foundries and packagers to serve a broad spectrum of applications in communications, sensing, quantum optics, biophotonics, instrumentation and other sectors.
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 silicon-on-insulator (SOI), silicon nitride (SiN) and indium phosphide (InP) material systems, as well as components based on planar lightwave circuits (PLCs). Component size can lie anywhere from 2mm x 2mm to 20mm x 20mm, while the wafer-handling system in the WLT is compatible with single dies and wafer sizes from 3” up to 12”.
Having already worked with several Fortune 500 and equivalent corporations, as well as emerging start-ups and researchers, VLC’s CEO Iñigo Artundo 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,” he says.
“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,” comments ficonTEC’s CEO Torsten Vahrenkamp. “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.”
