News: Optoelectronics
18 January 2024
Enablence and Polar partner to develop and manufacture optical transceiver chips
Enablence Technologies Inc of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, a publicly traded company that designs and manufactures optical components, and Polar Semiconductor of Bloomington, MN, USA, a foundry manufacturer of analog and power semiconductor devices and sensors for automotive, consumer and industrial markets, have announced a strategic partnership to develop and manufacture optical semiconductors used by transceiver companies.
As part of its strategic growth plan, Enablence has recently ramped up product development efforts, launching new families of coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) and dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical devices. At the same time, the firm has made significant investments in critical tool sets, including etching, lithography and deposition process technologies designed to ramp up production of its planar lightwave circuits (PLCs) to meet demand. PLCs provides a higher volume of optical integration in a smaller footprint, offering a lower cost, lower power and high-capacity advantages for systems using wavelength division multiplexing. With many new products in the development pipeline designed to address datacom, telecom, LiDAR and industrial automation growth opportunities, the collaboration with Polar provides Enablence access to high-quality, leading-edge tool sets, proven production processes and the capacity to meet new demand. For Polar, the partnership provides an opportunity to expand its footprint within the optoelectronics market, which is projected to grow substantially over the next several years.
“This partnership strengthens Polar Semiconductor’s expansion into optoelectronics manufacturing, something we see as a strategic growth segment,” says Polar’s VP of technology development Rajesh Appat. “Our primary goal is to work closely with Enablence Technologies to help deliver best-in-class, quality optoelectronics products to the market by applying our 60-plus years of proven expertise in technology and process development,” he adds.
“This partnership provides synergistic growth opportunities for both companies,” reckons Enablence’s CEO Todd Haugen. “It strengthens our production capabilities, provides us with new capacity, and immediately brings online critical etching, deposition and lithography processes which will help accelerate the development and release of our advanced, new optical products to the market.”
