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July, 2019
Large-Format Industrial Productivity: PI Fast Alignment Comes to ACS Controls
By Scott Jordan, Head of Global Photonics Market Segment, PI (Physik Instrumente)
production economics in processes as diverse as photonics wafer probing, device packaging, and chip testing and even laser and optical equipment manufacturing. The combination of blazing speed, nanoscale perform- ance and industrial robustness is reducing costs and improving yield worldwide. Now the flexible combination of
P
PI’s industrial stages and new align- ment-enabled controls from ACS address additional tough throughput and yield challenges for photonics pro- duction. Large-format production processes can now be addressed, with each mechanism contributing intelli- gent alignment for test and assembly. This opens new possibilities for hyper- efficient systems architectures. PI’s unique optimization func-
tionality is firmware-based, offers parallel alignment across multiple inputs, outputs and degrees-of-free- dom, and can improve process throughput by a factor of 100 or more compared to legacy approaches.
Automating Alignment Alignment automation emerged
three decades ago. In an era domi-
Gantry system with two hexapod 6 DOF alignment systems for high-speed photonics component test, controlled by ACS motion controllers.
nitude higher than in the 1997 to 2001 photonics boom, and the devices are quite different — for example, multiple I/Os necessitating multiple degree-of-freedom (DOF) optimiza-
PI’s unique, fifth-generation
optimization technology, now well- established in the field after its 2016 introduction, allows simultaneous alignment across channels, I/Os and
I’s award-winning fast opti- mization technology has been proven to dramatically improve
nated by single-mode pigtailing applications, it was an enabler that helped eliminate costly manual sub- micron alignment processes during device test and assembly The photonics world has
advanced, though. Wafer-based pho- tonics now drives the industry. Adoption volumes are orders of mag-
tion, with each coupling frequently presenting non-Gaussian multimode cross-sections and interactions across channels, inputs and outputs, and DOFs. While these challenges can often be met with legacy alignment techniques, the minutes-scale times required present serious challenges for production economics.
DOFs, even when they interact due to optical or geometric crosstalk. The dazzling throughput improvement of this parallelism can often exceed a factor of 100, as PI routinely demon- strates in live demonstrations at con- ferences. So, for example, an array- device alignment that previously took a few minutes can often now be achieved in a second or less. PI’s first implementations of
this technology were in fast piezo stages and hexapods. Now this key functionality has been extended to ACS controls, bringing the benefits of this groundbreaking functionality to large-format applications as diverse as photonics wafer probing, device packaging, and chip testing and even laser and optical equipment manu- facturing. The algorithms offer seamless
compatibility with today’s photonic devices, which often prove challeng- ing for legacy approaches. For exam- ple, there is no implicit assumption of circular symmetry embedded in the algorithms. That posed no issues in 1997 but can be highly sub-opti- mal for today’s photonic devices. It can practically be stated that these systems can virtually “optimize any- thing,” which is definitely not the
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