PI's FMPA Fast Multichannel Photonics Alignment Engine is an advanced alignment system for testing and packaging silicon photonics devices. It is based on a highly specialized digital motion controller integrating novel, inherently parallel alignment and tracking functionalities and hybrid precision scanning and tracking mechanisms combining the advantages of high-speed, closed-loop piezoelectric nanopositioners and servo-motor stages and hexapods.
Alignment times are reduced by up to two to three orders of magnitude by replacing the formerly required sequential iterations with one-step parallel optimizations in multiple degrees of freedom. This provides significant economic benefits for manufacturers and end-customers alike. Alignments are highly repeatable and tracking across the multiple couplings is real-time.
Judge's comment: "With its high-speed, closed-loop nanopositioners with 100-µm travel in each direction combined with a long-travel positioner with an optional hexapod for automatic angular optimization, this fast alignment engine for silicon photonics probing features overall impressive performance, such as a 2-nm positioning resolution and fine alignment times of less than 2 seconds."
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