Since July 2018, PHIX has been active on the global market with the assembly of photonic chips. PHIX wants to become market leader in this field and has come a step closer through new investments by Innovation Industries and existing investor Oost NL (from the Twente Innovation Fund). This capital injection will help PHIX to grow further and facilitate the upscaling of production capacity.
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Delen
Growth market photonics
UT spin-off PHIX, located in the High Tech Factory on the UT campus, receives new investments from Innovation Industries and Oost NL in order to grow further. PHIX has the ambition to become market leader in the assembly of photonic chips.
The photonic market is expected to grow exponentially over the next 5 years. Photonic technologies are penetrating many sectors, such as healthcare, automotive, sensors and consumer electronics. Photonic chips (chips that work with laser light, English: Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) are a key technology for the future, providing further miniaturization, faster connections and cost savings. Before PICs can be built into products, they must be connected with high accuracy to other components such as optical fibers, other photonic chips and electronics. This photonic assembly is the core competence of PHIX. PHIX is the photonic equivalent of the electronics industry’s well-known outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) companies.
Scaling up from prototype to volume production
PHIX takes the assembly of PICs out of the customers’ hands, so that they do not have to invest in equipment and production processes themselves. This enables rapid upscaling from prototype to volume product. Other customers choose PHIX for the outsourcing and external capacity of their production. To help customers from prototype to mass production, PHIX also provides technical support during product development. PHIX follows guidelines that ensure at an early stage that the design of PIC and product can be made in large series.
Adult industry
The investments of Innovation Industries and Oost NL are used for the aggressive growth ambitions and for further expansion of the production facilities. PHIX CEO Albert Hasper: “With the investments of Innovation Industries and Oost NL PHIX gets a solid basis to grow the company. This will enable PHIX to offer its customers the best production technology, now and in the future. Scaling up to volume production is an essential step to make the photonics industry mature”.
“PHIX will play an important role in the large-scale application of integrated photonic chips,” says Nard Sintenie, General Partner at Innovation Industries. “We look forward to helping PHIX maintain and further expand their leading position in photonic assembly. Pieter Klinkert, senior investment manager Tech at Oost NL, adds: “With money from the Innovatiefonds Twente we are happy to invest in a company that has developed strongly over the past two years within the ecosystem of photonics, one of the key technologies of the European Union. Innovative companies such as PHIX are of great importance to the region and underline the leading position that companies around the University of Twente occupy in the field of photonics. They attract talent and offer added value to the innovative ecosystem in Twente and beyond. We are proud to contribute to their sustainable growth. ”
Photonics is an important pillar on which Kennispark will focus in the coming years.
