Celebrating 10 Years of Impact: America’s First Accessible 300mm Photonic Packaging Facility

AIM Photonics’ TAP facility complements its design enablement capabilities and multi-project wafer services, creating a unified, end-to-end path from initial design all the way through fabrication, packaging, and testing.

In 2018, AIM Photonics launched a capability the U.S. photonics industry had long been lacking: an open-access, 300 mm packaging and test site for photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Known as TAP, AIM Photonics' test, assembly, and packaging facility in Rochester, NY fills a critical gap in America’s manufacturing infrastructure.

Photonic packaging is technically complex, capital-intensive, and essential for high-volume production. Before TAP, U.S. innovators had few secure, domestic options for scalable packaging, limiting national competitiveness and raising security concerns.

TAP changed that. With high-precision optical alignment and fiber attach, support for heterogeneous integration, and advanced back-end assembly and test infrastructure, AIM Photonics gives startups, researchers, and industry and government partners access to the tools and expertise needed to move from design concept to manufacturing-ready prototypes. TAP also complements AIM Photonics’ design enablement and MPW services, completing the nation’s first full-scale, end-to-end PIC manufacturing capability.

As we mark 10 years of impact, AIM Photonics' TAP facility stands as a major step forward in securing America’s position in next-generation photonics.