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11 Mar 2025
New Zealand-based Quantifi sells a range of products aimed at large-scale PIC manufacturers.
Teradyne, the Massachusetts-based test and measurement equipment firm, has signed an agreement that should see it acquire Quantifi Photonics by the end of June.
Headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, and with offices in Texas, Germany, and Thailand, Quantifi sells a range of products including photonic test instruments and digital sampling oscilloscopes (DSOs) aimed at developers of photonic integrated circuits (PICs), co-packaged optics, and pluggable optics.
Wafer-level testing
Teradyne says that the deal will enable it to deliver scalable PIC test solutions at a time when PIC production is set to boom - largely as a result of hefty recent investment in high-performance computing and in support of artificial intelligence (AI) cloud infrastructure based around high-speed optical links.
Its CEO, Greg Smith, said: “The extraordinary growth and complexity driven by Cloud AI will require optical interconnect solutions to support the bandwidth and reduce the power required for next-generation networks.
“We are thrilled to welcome the Quantifi Photonics team to Teradyne to accelerate the development of cost-effective, high-throughput test solutions for wafer-level, die/multi-die and co-packaged optical module testing.”
Quantifi’s co-founder and CEO Iannick Monfils added: “By combining Quantifi Photonics’ deep expertise in photonic testing and Teradyne’s leadership in semiconductor ATE [automated test equipment], we are uniquely positioned to revolutionize photonics high-volume manufacturing.
“The silicon photonics market is at an inflection point that requires innovative, state-of-the-art solutions to unlock its full potential. By combining our strengths, Teradyne and Quantifi Photonics will provide customers with complete turn-key photonic test solutions that allow them to scale. Quantifi Photonics is excited to join the Teradyne family.”
PIC ramp in progress
Products sold by Quantifi include its “QCA Series” DSO, which the company showed off at the recent SPIE Photonics West technology exhibition in San Francisco.
The company says that its high-quality precision timebase and low jitter mode are designed to deliver a cost-effective, scalable, and high-density test solution for next-generation high-speed interconnects and high-density ASICs.
“Its ultra-low jitter performance and unrivalled instrument density is ideally suited to perform high-precision measurements in parallel for optimized test throughput and reduced cost-of-test in high-volume testing and manufacturing applications,” claims Quantifi.
“The QCA Series can be easily integrated into existing assembly and alignment equipment.”
Significant recent developments highlighting investment in PIC production include a planned ramp by STMicroelectronics at its wafer fabrication facility in France, and GlobalFoundries’ plan to build a new silicon photonics facility at its Malta location, near the Albany technology hub in upstate New York.
Meanwhile analysts at the consultancy group IDTechX have predicted that the market for PICs will grow by close to an order of magnitude over the next ten years, reaching an annual total of $54 billion by 2035.
Intel’s silicon photonics division, which in late 2023 transferred its transceiver business to Jabil, is said to have shipped more than 8 million PICs since 2016, indicating the growing maturity of the technology.
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