Phononic, a developer of solid-state cooling and heating technology, today announced full customer qualification of manufacturing operations at Fabrinet, (NYSE: FN), a provider of advanced optical packaging and precision optical, electro-mechanical and electronic manufacturing services. The partnership with Fabrinet dramatically ramps up Phononic’s global manufacturing capability, allowing for increased growth and revenue despite global supply chain bottlenecks that have impacted numerous industries worldwide.
Despite COVID-related travel restrictions between U.S.-based Phononic and Fabrinet’s manufacturing facilities in Thailand, the companies succeeded in gaining full customer qualification in just over a year. Phononic’s highly-automated and readily-transferable chip manufacturing process, coupled with Fabrinet’s state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities and speed to market, enabled the companies to scale with customers in an exceedingly stressed global manufacturing environment.
This expansion allows Phononic to continue delivering disruptive and sustainable cooling solutions for its key target sectors: optical communications and LiDAR; cold chain fulfillment; retail merchandising in grocery; and product licensing initiatives in life sciences, healthcare, and climate control.
“The world is demanding the sustainable cooling solutions that we provide,” said Kevin Granucci, Chief Revenue Officer of Phononic. “Fabrinet gives us that critical, predictable global access to state-of-the art manufacturing while stateside we can continue to focus on our innovation pipeline. Early on in 2020, we forecast strong and robust global demand for our solid-state solutions. By aligning just a year later with one of the most respected manufacturing partners in the world, the message is clear: we’re open and ready for business.”
“Fabrinet excels in the production of high complexity semiconductor products,” said Edward Archer, Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing of Fabrinet. “Our advanced optical and electronic packaging and precision manufacturing capabilities were a natural fit for Phononic’s exacting specifications, and we are proud of our ability to operate at speed under such extraordinary conditions in which most of the work was handled virtually across continents.”
As a result of this partnership, Phononic can also meet demand and strengthen its commercial position in APAC. Optical communications components companies based in the region will be able to leverage Phononic’s in-continent expansion for thermoelectric devices in optical components for datacenters, high-speed coherent applications, as well as 5G mobile and access networks (FTTx). Phononic R&D, product development and production will continue at the company’s headquarters and manufacturing facility in Durham, North Carolina.