Phononic Announces General Availability of Non-Hermetic Thermoelectric Cooler

Phononic announced general availability of ReefTEC, its proprietary Non-Hermetic Compatible Thermoelectric Cooler (TEC) Platform. Uniquely designed for the demanding and ever-changing thermal needs of optical communications equipment, Phononic’s unprecedented non-hermetic TEC platform has also been recognized as an honoree in the 2019 Lightwave Innovation Reviews program. Phononic will be presented this award at the Optical Networking and Communication (OFC) Conference on March 4 in San Diego.

Phononic’s Non-Hermetic Compatible Thermoelectric Cooler Platform is re-engineered from the ground up to provide high reliability and best-in-class cooling performance for non-hermetic laser packaging. Building upon Phononic’s unique expertise in cooling optoelectronic components, this advancement brings to market a high-quality solution that dramatically improves survivability in the most challenging non-hermetic environments relative to traditional TECs – while still reducing overall TEC and TOSA power consumption.

“The optical communications market is facing intense pressure to reduce package and product costs, while still keeping pace with increasing network speeds required by 5G and modern data center applications,” said Alex Guichard, Director of Product Marketing, Optoelectronics at Phononic. “We are thrilled to announce general availability for this TEC platform, and in tandem, have this technology recognized by Lightwave.This further validates our mission to provide to the optical communications market a non-hermetic solution that offers dramatically improved robustness in non-hermetic environments without sacrificing performance.

Phononic developed this platform throughout 2018 while working in partnership with leading optical components manufacturers on their cooled, non-hermetic transmitter optical subassembly (TOSA) development programs. “The feedback we consistently received from our partners was our TEC had to be resilient to environmental challenges that could arise for a cooled laser operating in a non-hermetic environment,” said Kevin Granucci, Phononic’s VP/GM of Optoelectronics. “This platform surpasses those expectations.Today’s general availability announcement is emblematic of our confidence in the vetting we have conducted with our partners.

“Cooled, non-hermetic laser packages represent a vast opportunity to fundamentally change the trade-offs between cost and performance in optical transceivers,” said Vladimir Kozlov, founder and CEO of LightCounting. “Packaging technologies like chip-on-board and photonic integration will achieve unprecedented cost per bit for next-generation optical components.

Visit Phononic at OFC, March 4-7 at booth #2041 for a live demonstration of the ReefTEC platform and to discuss how it enables new laser packaging approaches.