November 2012 - Progressing

Maybe this isn’t the most professional thing to say, but I am pleasantly surprised by the fact that both Technobis Mechatronics and Technobis Fibre Technologies are achieving growth in these tough times. Several years ago, we chose to specialize in both companies and offer our customers a clearer profile of technology and services. It’s immensely rewarding to see that our strategy seems to be paying off.

Technobis Mechatronics develops and supplies medical, life science and analyzing instruments in which precision mechanics, motion control, temperature control and photonics play a crucial role. Technobis Fibre Technologies has its own line of fibre-optic instruments and is mostly involved in dedicated R&D for large OEM customers.

At TFT-FOS, after introducing the first interrogator chip in our previous newsletter, we set about creating clearer development profiles for ourselves and our customers. Building on the basic interrogator chip, we have launched four lines of development, each targeting its own end-users while continuing to reinforce the other lines.

We came up with cool names for our projects and systems. The basic chip, used in all development trajectories for our specific end users, is called Gator (short for interrogator). The Gator will focus on further high-speed developments (MHz) with standard resolution and number of sensors. Ladybug is our high resolution system reaching nano strain level, while our Ant system focuses on large numbers of sensors in one system (2400 sensors). The last development line – known as Falcon – is geared towards reducing the price of a basic interrogator module by achieving an incredibly high level of integration.

With the aim of speeding up developments in the building blocks for application-specific photonic integrated circuits, TFT-FOS and Van Der Hoek Photonics came up with the idea of combining the R&D activities of multiple SME companies in a joint R&D institute called GPICSLab (Generic Photonic Integrated Circuits Laboratories). Read on to find out more about this exciting initiative.

This newsletter also features tidings from Japan, where Rolf visited our reseller. And there’s a chance to get to know our latest new employee, Johan.

Have fun reading our news.

Best regards,
Pim Kat.