News: Suppliers
1 July 2022
Palomar places vacuum reflow furnace at UK’s EPIC
Photonics and microelectronic device assembly & packaging equipment maker Palomar Technologies Inc of Carlsbad, CA, USA has announced the consignment of an SST 5100 vacuum reflow furnace at the Electronics and Photonics Innovation Centre (EPIC) in Paignton, Torbay, UK. The focus will be on delivering higher-quality optoelectronics packaging for several different applications.
Picture: Palomar’s SST 5100 vacuum reflow furnace.
EPIC is a center 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 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 thermoelectric cooler (TEC)-to-gold box bond — as well as for the chip-on-chip (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 thermos-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.
Palomar partners with UK’s Electronics and Photonics Innovation Centre
