Karlsruhe, Germany, April 15, 2024 — Vanguard Automation, a Mycronic company, is delighted to announced today that its 3D lithography system, SONATA 1000, has been successfully commissioned at Tyndall National Institute. The PIXAPP pilot line, headquartered at Tyndall National Institute, consists of a highly interdisciplinary team of Europe’s leading industrial & research organizations. PIXAPP offers standardized Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) packaging services to customers, increasing access and reducing the cost of manufacturing photonic devices. The installation of the SONATA 1000 will advance Tyndall & PIXAPP’s mission to „break the packaging cost barrier“ by accelerating the development and commercialization of photonic integration and packaging processes.
The vanguard SONATA 1000 is a next generation technology platform, enabling automated photonic integration and packaging. The solution is scalable from low volume R&D and prototyping work, up to volume production applications. The unit is comprised of a 3D lithography-based nano fabrication system and is compatible with industry simulation software. The SONATA 1000 can print virtually any micro-optical element and can fabricate Photonic Wire Bonds™ (PWB), providing low loss interconnects between photonic components. The solution removes the need for high-precision mechanical alignment and the use of additional micro-optical elements for mode-matching.
Tyndall facility users and industry partners will benefit from using this system to both advance and accelerate their research and development activities. The vanguard SONATA 1000 will enable reliable and repeatable fabrication of multi-chip photonic subassemblies for various applications areas such as telecom / datacom, optical and quantum computing.