PIC Magazine Issue 3, September 2025
With industry-ready 3D nano-printing solutions, Vanguard Automation is lighting the path to scalable and reliable processes for integrating active components to PICs
Demand is surging for high-performance optics and PICs, driven by AI, datacom, and quantum technologies. LightCounting’s recent report on Optics for AI Clusters forecasts that the market for optical transceivers used in AI clusters will double from $5 billion in 2024 to over $10 billion by 2026. But there’s a major complication in meeting these needs: next-generation designs for photonic products often combine active and passive components in hybrid systems, fabricated on diverse material platforms such as indium phosphide (InP), silicon nitride, silicon, and thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN). Traditional active alignment techniques enable accuracy down to sub-micron precision, meeting the stringent requirements for mode-field matching and alignment tolerances that are needed to ensure highly efficient signal transmission.
At Vanguard Automation, we take a different approach; by combining passive alignment techniques and machine vision with high-precision and fully automated 3D nano-printing, we develop scalable and high-throughput manufacturing solutions for hybrid photonic integration.
Read more here page 14.
