Amplitude, a long-time strategic investor in the French startup GLOphotonics, is pleased to welcome Trumpf and DMG-MORI as new partners in the company. GLOphotonics develops hollow-core fibers for low-loss delivery of high energy ultrafast laser pulses. This promising technology is already integrated in our main product offering and has the potential to significantly reshape the ultrafast laser micro-processing landscape.
Satsuma fiber-coupled femtosecond laser
Amplitude believes in the power of collaboration and openness in the photonics industry and is looking forward to working with its new partners to bring this new technology to the market.
Liège, 7/10/2019 – LASEA, one of the world leaders in laser micromachining, has announced it is tripling its equity and entering a new growth phase in its various markets. The current shareholders (Epimède, SRIW, Noshaq and private shareholders) are backing this operation to the tune of 6.1 million euros (first phase) to which will be added almost 10 million euros thanks to additional support from Europe and the Walloon Region.
LASEA, the high-tech Liège company, a laser micromachining pioneer
With annual organic growth of 32% since 2012, in 7 years, LASEA has multiplied its revenue and its
workforce by 7. Now the European leader of femtosecond laser micromachining, it is rapidly
increasing its market shares in the USA and Japan.
LASEA machines are used for cutting, marking and texturing materials with unrivalled quality and
precision (up to 0.2μm, i.e. 250x smaller than the width of a human hair). With cutting-edge R&D at
the international level, it regularly initiates innovations well in advance of the state of the art (cutting
with no conicity, bio-mimicry, machining along 7 axes simultaneously, etc.).
The capital increase will bolster its growth of recent years in both its primary sectors (pharmaceutical
industry, luxury, medical devices) and in new sectors like electronics.
New resources to accelerate its growth further and develop new sectors
LASEA S.A. l Liège Science Park l Rue des Chasseurs Ardennais 10 l 4031 Angleur l BELGIQUE 2 / 3
“With this capital-raising operation, the biggest since LASEA was founded, we are giving ourselves the
means to match our ambitions. Our strategy is to further strengthen our commercial presence in our
various countries while pursuing our cutting-edge technological developments in laser micromachining.
To achieve our goals, we are going to extend our campaigns to recruit new talent and to seek synergies
with other companies in our market niches”, Axl Kupisiewicz, Lasea CEO stated.
To support this new development phase, a new building in the Liège Science Park will come on-stream in
June 2020. The 4,000 m² of office and production space (workshops and clean rooms) will allow the
current production capacity to be multiplied by three. This investment is covered by a loan of 7 million
euros from BNP Paribas Fortis and Belfius.
Benoît Fellin, Investment Manager at the Noshaq Group: “We have backed LASEA in all its development
stages, since it was founded in 1999. Today, and starting at Liège, LASEA is acknowledged internationally
for its very specific expertise. We are therefore very enthusiastic about taking part in this operation.
These new resources will allow LASEA to continue to grow.”
Pierre Paraire, responsible for handling the matter at SRIW: “The entrepreneurial ability of the founder,
an innovation strategy translated into a product strategy, international deployment, the level of
qualification of human resources, etc. All these factors have led SRIW to reaffirming its shareholder’s
support for LASEA by taking part in this new capital-raising operation”
Philippe Degeer, Investment Manager at Epimède: “We are delighted once again to have established a
partnership with LASEA and other key investment funds to support this ambitious growth project. Our
goal is to help the company grow and enable it to reach a higher level. We have full confidence in the
ability of the LASEA team to offer exceptional performance in the future and are delighted to be part of
this project.”
The equity capital-raising operation will allow the company to initiate a new development phase, to
accelerate sales and to continue a process of industrializing new products stemming from its major
research programs.
These new resources will be used to:
Expand the sales and marketing force
Develop the subsidiaries (Bordeaux – France; Biel – Switzerland; San Diego – USA), as well as the
new agents’ and distributors’ network (Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain,
Germany, Taiwan, etc.).
Hire new talent to finalise the new products targeted at the medical and electronics sectors
Strengthen synergies with companies in its market niches
Promote 2 new softwares worldwide (deployment in January 2020)
About LASEA:
Founded in 1999, LASEA supplies production lines to the most prestigious companies in the world
including the top 3 Swiss watchmakers, leading glasses manufacturers, the pharmaceutical and medical
industry (intra-ocular and cochlear implants), as well as several big names of Silicon Valley. Active in 27
countries and on 4 continents, it has already installed more than 300 machines worldwide (production
systems and lines operating 24 hours a day). In addition to its headquarters in Belgium (Liège Science
Park), it has subsidiaries in Bordeaux, San Diego and Biel. It employs 80 people and owns a 25% stake in
CISEO (formerly WOW group) with CITIUS and UNISENSOR.
LASEA has been a finalist in the competition of the Promising Enterprise of the Year (EY), is part of the
50 fastest-growing companies in Belgium (Fast 50 – Deloitte) and has won various awards including the
Wallonia Export Grand Prix 2018 (AWEX) and the Micron d’Or 2018 (Machine-tools
category). www.lasea.com
About Noshaq:
Noshaq is the financial partner of reference for the creation and development of SMEs in the Liège
region. Over the years, Noshaq has developed a panel of funding vehicles in line with market needs and
trends and with its strategy. www.noshaq.be
About SRIW:
S.R.I.W. develops a wide range of customised solutions to support business creation, development
through innovation or investment, internal and external growth, the creation of subsidiaries in Wallonia,
Belgium or abroad, winning new markets, etc. The value of its shareholdings currently exceeds 2.2 billion
euros. www.sriw.be
About Epimède:
Epimède Capital is an investment fund targeting small and medium-sized enterprises with high growth
potential in the technology sector. www.epimede.com
ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — The Laser Institute (LIA)’s 38th International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO) was recently held in Orlando, Florida and featured the conference’s many firsts. A meeting of laser industry experts and decision-makers from around the world, the event hosted dialogue with a deeper industry foci, more expansive technical sessions, and a new Business Conference that addressed laser end-users while highlighting solutions from the manufacturing community.
A collection of Live User Solutions Forums, Market Drivers Symposia, and Live User Solutions Round Tables discussions, the Business Conference acted as a complement to ICALEO’s traditional Technical Conference. Regarded as a concentrated effort of participants from the Aerospace, Biomedical, Microelectronics, and Automotive industries, ICALEO’s Business sessions allowed laser manufacturers, integrators, and end-users to engage in the discussion on the unique challenges and revolutionary applications in the industry.
To further emphasize the attendee-friendly approach of this year’s ICALEO format, the Business Conference also presented a four-day tradeshow that connected all members of the laser marketplace. An accomplishment at dedicating whole days to each of its selected industries, the tradeshow hosted over 40 international exhibitors from the likes of IPG Photonics, II-VI, and more.
Spanning the duration of the conference to maximize the attendee’s opportunity to network with these leading brands, the assembly of exhibitors also included Han’s Laser Smart Equipment Group (ICALEO’s Diamond Sponsor), Coherent Inc. (ICALEO’s Platinum Sponsor), as well as TRUMPF Inc., Kentek, and Edgewave (ICALEO’s Gold Sponsors).
Meanwhile, the ICALEO Technical Conference enhanced its focus on the innovative and novel uses of lasers and photonics via its subdivided tracks. These are comprised of the Laser Additive Manufacturing, Laser Materials Macroprocessing, Laser Materials Microprocessing, Laser Nanomanufacturing, and Battery Systems and Energy Conversion tracks.
An approach that allowed the conference speakers to deliberate on how laser applications can push the envelope of modern technology while advancing key industries in their accuracy, efficiency, and speed, the Technical Conference’s new format also gave engineers and materials processing experts the chance to discover new processing techniques, acquire new skills, and collaborate to ensure their organization stays up-to-date and on the leading edge of productivity.
These innovations and advancements were envisioned in the opening addresses of the plenary speakers from all four industries. Peter Boeijink of XYREC opened the aerospace-focused conference with his speech on “The Largest, Highest-Power, Mobile, Industrial, Laser Materials Processing Robot in the World” while Dr. Christoph Leyens from Fraunhofer IWS discussed the “Innovative Aerospace and Space Structures Made by Additive Manufacturing.”
Similarly, the esteemed Professor William Steen presented his speech “The Coming of the Age of Optical Engineering” during the biomedical conference, alongside Fraunhofer Institute of Laser Technology (ILT)’s Dr. Nadine Nottrodt who spoke on “Laser in Biofabrication – How Laser Technology Can Help to Build Artificial Tissue.” They were joined by Dr. Chris Bashur of the Florida Institute of Technology who elaborated on the “Photonic Needs in Regenerative Medicine.”
Participants from the microelectronics industry mulled over the words of Dr. Kumar Patel of Pranalytica Inc. during his plenary speech on “Recapturing the Excitement of High Power Infrared Lasers,” while Dr. Markus Arendt of SUSS MicroTec Photonic Systems spoke on the “Excimer Laser Ablation for High-Density Routing in Advanced Packaging.”
During the automotive-focused conference, Ethan Sprague from the University of Michigan presented his thoughts on “Laser Aided Manufacturing: Atom to Automobile” before Dr. Ted Reutzel of Pennsylvania State University described the “Progress Towards Sensing and Mitigating Flaw Formation in Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing.” Their presentations joined the observations on “Bottoms Up Digital Design: The Quiet Revolution of the Additive Manufacturing Age” by Dr. Jason Carroll of Eaton, a power-management company that provides energy-efficient solutions to managing electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical power.
To view the highlighted content from ICALEO 2019, including recorded interviews, panels, and speeches, follow LIA’s social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The 39th ICALEO will be held at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois USA from Oct 19, 2020–Oct 22, 2020. Call for papers and Tradeshow booth bookings will be made available soon, and interested parties may contact icaleo@lia.org for further information.
ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Laser industry professionals from academic and industrial settings will be meeting in Orlando, Florida for the 38th annual International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO) conference from Oct 7, 2019–Oct 10, 2019. Organized by The Laser Institute (LIA), the revamped iteration features the four industry foci of Aerospace, Biomedical, Microelectronics, and Automotive.
This year’s ICALEO will introduce a new Business Conference that addresses laser end-users while presenting solutions to challenges that various manufacturing industries are experiencing. A complement to the Technical Conference and its workshops, the Business Conference will allow manufacturers, integrators, and suppliers to selectively engage in the discussion on the unique challenges and revolutionary applications for advanced laser materials processing.
Co-chairs Klaus Löffler of TRUMPF Laser- und Systemtechnik GmbH, and Dr. Henrikki Pantsar from TRUMPF Inc. describe the event as an opportunity to bridge manufacturing and applied research, as well as a platform to highlight laser providers with leading solutions. The exhibitors that attendees will have the opportunity to engage with during the Trade Show include TRUMPF, II-VI, NASA, IPG Photonics, Han’s Laser, and more.
In addition to the Trade Show that will go on across the four days of the conference, conversations will also revolve around the business plenary addresses from the likes of Dr. Christoph Leyens. The Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology in Dresden, Dr. Leyens will speak on the innovative aerospace and space structures made by additive manufacturing during the Aerospace Business Conference day on Oct 7.
He will be joined by Dave Hudson, the President and CEO of Joining Industries and the head of three manufacturing subsidiaries that specialize in different categories of laser-based manufacturing. Mr. Hudson’s presentation will revolve around the expanding use of industrial lasers in aerospace manufacturing.
During the Biomedical Business Conference day on Oct 8, Professor William Steen, the ‘Father of Laser Materials Processing’ and namesake of the inaugural William M. Steen Award will be in attendance to present his talk on the coming of the age of optical engineering. A plenary speech by Dr. Chris Bashur of Florida Institute of Technology will also enlighten the audience on the lasers and optics applications in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Markus Arendt, the President of SUSS MicroTec Photonic Systems, will then elaborate on the practicality of excimer laser ablation for high-density routing in advanced packaging during the Microelectronics Business Conference day on Oct 9.
On the next day, the University of Michigan’s Dr. Jyoti Mazumder will present his plenary address “Laser Aided Manufacturing: Atom to Automobile” for the Automotive Business Conference day. Dr. Jason Carroll, the Global Technology Director for Materials and Manufacturing at Eaton, will follow with his thoughts on the bottom-up digital design for additive manufacturing.
The Future of Interaction & the Laser Processing Challenges that Stand in the Way
by William S. Land, II, Business Development Manager for Aerotech
As everyone who is interested in display technology is aware, the switch over from LCD technology to OLED displays has begun in the handheld electronics market. However, with technology change and consumer benefit come challenges in manufacturing. As with all production processes, OLED display manufacturers are concerned with yield and production rate. Demand is surging, and the end markets OLED displays supply are time sensitive and high pressure. Some of the major manufacturing challenges related to OLED display fabrication stem from the need for individual component displays to be cut out by a laser. These challenges all come down to three things: displays are getting bigger, they need to be cut very fast because they are too expensive, and most importantly, the materials used to make them are extremely sensitive to process parameters and difficult to cut with quality.
Firstly, handheld electronic displays are trending larger. This poses a major problem for the laser processing of LED based displays. The cutting of individual component displays relies on galvanometer-based laser scanners to achieve economically viable throughput rates. However, there are serious limitations that prevent the manufacture of displays much larger than 100 mm in length by scanner alone. It turns out that OLED display polymers, as mentioned, are very sensitive to laser parameter variations. Therefore, they require specific laser spot sizes to produce high quality cuts. Since laser spot size is directly tied to available working area in galvo scanner systems, this poses a major issue to OLED manufacturers. Manufacturers need the speed of a galvo, but are limited in the field size they can achieve due to laser spot size. Market demand for LED-based displays began in the wearable device market where the constraint on laser scanner working area was less of a hindrance due to smaller device sizes. With mobile and tablet displays trending larger, and adjacent markets such as the automotive industry asking for larger displays, manufacturers are finding ways to maintain the throughput of a scanner-based system while achieving larger working areas.
Image: Multi-scanner system utilizing the IFOV A3200 controller feature to make complex, large-scale, high-dynamic laser processing between multiple axes easy to the user.
The primary way OLED display manufacturers are extending the working area of their laser cutting systems is by combining scanner motion with the simultaneous motion of a larger subsystem. Only a few modern motion controllers allow for this type of synchronization between scanner and servo stage motion in the performance of a single laser path. Manufacturers are using this, what I call a cascaded motion process, to achieve the required scanner-level dynamic performance and speed over a much larger travel range. The cascaded motion eliminates the dependency of scanner field-of-view and laser spot size. This allows process engineers to select the optics best suited to achieve high-quality material processing, independent of the component size the machine will process. Without a combined-motion laser delivery system, it is difficult for display manufacturers to achieve the levels of throughput and yield rates that are required to remain economically viable. As such, this type of synchronized motion is seen as a key enabler moving forward while manufacturers begin to tackle the production of more exotic displays.
An added benefit of controlling the scanner and servo stages from a unified software and hardware platform is the ability to mitigate servo stage dynamic error. Performing the cascaded motion in a single integrated control algorithm allows the scanner to compensate for servo stage tracking errors in real-time. In this manner, LED display manufacturers suffer little to no accuracy penalty over a pure scanner system. This is critical to the process, because maintaining accuracy while processing as fast as possible is another major challenge to cutting component OLED displays with a laser.
The cutting of LED display component assemblies demands high levels of laser spot tracking accuracy through complex geometries. In order to bring cost down as much as possible, individual displays are being laser cut at speeds upwards of 2-5 m/s while maintaining <2-3 µm of peak dynamic accuracy. This level of dynamic accuracy is demanded by the many connections and fine features at the edges of the displays that connect them to the display electronics. Hitting these accuracy tolerances at the required throughput rates is a very difficult motion control task, and added dynamic error from the larger servo stages would eat into the already thin error margins if they were not accounted for through an integrated controls approach to the cascaded motion. Even with the integrated cascaded motion, nearly every modern controls technique must be employed to successfully achieve these specifications. This ties into the most difficult challenge with regard to the laser cutting of OLED displays – the sensitivity of the complex material stacks used to make them.
Traditional laser control techniques are based in the temporal domain. Most pulsed and short pulsed lasers, popular in display manufacturing, are fired at a fixed frequency. As a result, the acceleration that’s required to maintain dynamic accuracy during complex profile segments causes variations in the average fluency and power density delivered to the part. As the laser spot travels through a cornering move where it must slow, laser pulses bunch together causing overheating and poor cut qualities of the display polymers (Figure 1). This is untenable for yield; control over the average path fluency must be maintained with these polymers. The only acceptable option left with traditional temporal laser control is to maintain constant velocity through the entire motion path. Since the maximum velocity has to be constrained to achieve the required dynamic accuracy through the highest dynamic move, throughput is reduced during less dynamic moves. This too is untenable but for throughput. For these reasons, some display manufacturers are moving to controllers that offer the ability to control lasers in unique ways.
Figure 1: An example of temporal versus spatial domain laser control.
One approach to mitigating laser parameter variations caused by acceleration is performing spatial domain pulsing. Spatial-based laser controls enable the user to command pulses as a function of distance traveled by the laser spot rather than elapsed time. By integrating the motion system’s feedback into the laser pulse generator, modern controllers are able to modulate the pulse frequency as a function of the laser spot’s velocity. This maintains constant pulse spacing and therefore average fluency to the part. Through this functionality, a complete suite of trajectory planning and complex motion controls can be applied to the motion system without compromising the quality and yield of cutting operations. This allows for maximum cutting throughput while maintaining stringent accuracy requirements at the high yield rates required by display industry economics.
Other spatial domain laser controls that further empower the user to control energy delivery exist and are frequently used in the cutting of sensitive materials such as LED display components. One example is the ability to modulate average laser power, or pulse energy in the case of pulsed lasers, as a function of position within the optical field of scanner systems. Regulating pulse energy as a function of position can be used to correct for predictable variations in fluency that result from laser spot distortions attributable to the optics. These optical influences are theoretically modeled and can be effectively mitigated by varying pulse energy as the spot diameter increases and decreases during scanner travel. Likewise, integrated knowledge of the entire motion system’s feedback allows for the pulse energy or average laser power to be varied as a function of the tool-on-part velocity of the laser spot. Through modern laser control features such as these, further implicit control over the fluency and power density imparted to the cut path is afforded to the user. The advantages these laser controls offer, however, is largely predicated on a singular control architecture where all feedback signals can be interrogated and combined within the controller. A unified control architecture is particularly key when using such laser controls with combined motion systems such as the cascaded motion approach critical to OLED manufacturing as described above.
As many of the laser control techniques have only newly been introduced to the space of ultra-short pulse lasers, close relationships between motion suppliers and laser source suppliers are being forged to better empower display manufacturers. These relationships are necessary to deliver the most capable combined laser and motion processing system possible to display manufacturers. As the industry progresses into adjacent and more complicated product markets, such as the automotive industry, the continued development of enabling and novel control capabilities between laser and motion will certainly be required. As an example, it is likely that cascaded, coordinated motion and spatial domain triggering will be required in full 3D space to process and cut displays of free-form shape. As flexible and curved LED displays continue to proliferate in everyday life, modern control features such as those discussed will help to open new LED display markets. To learn more about how Aerotech is already driving innovation in the display market with advanced motion and laser control features, or how we might improve your LED manufacturing capabilities, give us a call.
This article was written by William S. Land, II, Business Development Manager for Aerotech, Pittsburgh, PA. Will started his career at Aerotech in 2011 as a mechanical development engineer and has since served in various positions in engineering, product management and business development roles. Will holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Penn State University and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is currently pursuing an MBA at the University of Pittsburgh.
