Albis Opto completes 1,000 hours biased damp heat test

JANUARY 15, 2007 -- Albis Optoelectronics AG (search for Albis Optoelectronics), developer of photodiodes for analog and digital applications, today announced that it has developed a new technology that protects biased photodiodes in hot and humid environments.

After several years of extensive research, this new technology now enables the operation of bare die photodiodes for more than 1,000 hours in an 85 ° C, 85% r.H. environment, say company representatives.

"For years, receiver manufacturers have been spending considerable efforts to make their modules hermetic in order to avoid degradation of the biased photodiodes" explains Markus Blaser, chief technology officer of Albis Opto. "Hermeticity does not come cheap and causes a dramatic increase in the bill of material. Our hermetic photodiode technology brings down packaging costs and allows non-hermetic modules to pass the stringent Telcordia GR-468 requirements," he reports.

"Especially modules used for parallel optics or for PLC-based di- and triplexers will have a great cost benefit from our hemeticity technology," adds Vincent Grundlehner, vice president of sales and marketing. "In addition, module development time will go down, and Telcordia qualification costs will be reduced."

Hermeticity on bare die level is a central part of the company's strategy to integrate new functions and features to photodiodes. "Hermeticity again demonstrates our ability to integrate additional functionality into our traditional photodiode products," notes Peter Cairoli, chief executive officer of Albis Opto. "Such add-on functions reduce the cost of optical modules, as these feature-rich photodiodes can be manufactured on wafer level with high yields."

According to company representatives, this hermeticity technology can be applied throughout the Albis photodiode portfolio in accordance with customer demand.

The next major development milestone for the technology will be an extension of the lifetime of biased photodiodes to 2,000 hours in such challenging 85 ° C, 85% r.H. environments.

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