UK's EPIC centre gets new vacuum furnace
Palomar Technologies places SST 5100 vacuum furnace at the EPIC centre in Torbay to support optoelectronics packaging
Palomar Technologies, a company involved in process solutions for advanced photonics and microelectronic device packaging, has announced the consignment of an SST 5100 vacuum reflow furnace at the Electronics and Photonics Innovation Centre (EPIC) in Paignton, UK. The focus will be on delivering higher-quality optoelectronics packaging for several different applications.
EPIC is a centre of excellence, supporting technological innovation and promoting collaborative activity between businesses and research institutions. It focuses on supporting start-up and spin-off companies and encourages foreign direct investment to Torbay and its microelectronics and photonics sector.
Previously, Palomar has placed a Palomar 3880 Die Bonder and 8000 Wire Bonder, at the EPIC Prototyping Suite, which were subsequently purchased and are now available for use by EPIC members and other photonics companies to use on photonics/optoelectronics projects.
For the manufacture of optical transceiver engines, using the void-free solutions delivered by the SST 5100 can deliver higher thermal conductivity, thinner bond lines and a cleaner finish. This requires changing from epoxy bonding of a TEC to gold box bond, as well as for the CoC to TEC bond, to a eutectic sandwich bond process achieved with a vacuum reflow furnace.
For higher bit rate transceivers (over 400G to 1.6T), supplementing ball bumping from the Palomar 8000/8100 Ball Bonder and flip-chip thermo compression bond on the Palomar 3880/3880-II Die Bonder with the over-pressure advantage provided by the SST 5100, is expected to provide the superior RF performance needed for market success.
