Firm strengthens capabilities in niche semiconductor technologies, leapfrogging industry’s commercialisation of smart city applications

Singapore, 28 January 2020 – Announcing the launch of its maiden SiPh test facility, believed to be Southeast Asia’s first-of-its-kind site, CompoundTek, a global foundry services leader in emerging silicon photonics (SiPh) solutions will  offer production and engineering test services accessible to commercial industry players. The testing service is independent of CompoundTek’s foundry services, enabling non-CompoundTek customers the opportunity to leverage the open-testing platform.

Housing SiPh on-wafer testing and cutting-edge equipment, instrument controls and test methodologies, the facility is custom-built by CompoundTek and its partners. The hub caters to the development of solutions that revolutionises data-transmission capabilities sought after in data centres, interconnectivity, Lidar, smart sensors and other high-growth applications poised to see explosive volume production over the next 5 years largely driven by advancements in smart city applications.

The test facility, established at CompoundTek’s Jurong East International Business Park office is staffed by a resident SiPh test team, bringing into the technology ecosystem proven talents with international expertise in both manual and automatic silicon photonics testing on either 8” or 12” wafers. The cleanroom is accredited as class 1000/10000 with its equipment designed to achieve fast and reproducible optical coupling, including 6-axis probe-position optimisation and polarisation alignment; wafer probing for conventional DC and RF electrical testing in the optical domain, and is capable of supporting both O and C-band. The facility will additionally enable the testing of electro-optical components up to 67GHz and is ideally suited for electro-optical components for 400Gbit/s or higher.

Outlining the hub’s unique offering, CompoundTek’s Chief Operating Officer, K.S. Ang, explained,” With added on-wafer level automated SiPh Optical/Electrical/RF testing facility, customers will be able to limit packaging costs to good dies (Known-Good-Die) only and avoid module packaging level testing turn-around time losses. This complements our rapidly growing solutions portfolio designed to drive mass production volume with fast cycle-time. Offered alongside our world-class commercial foundry capabilities, we are able to accelerate customers’ time-to-market to subsequently meet their commercialisation goals.

We are excited to be able to expand our footprint to better support customers regionally and internationally with this facility.”

Highlights of Southeast Asia’s first Silicon Photonics Testing Centre of Excellence