Author: raoam488

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has conditionally approved the business combination of U.S. semiconductor software companies Syhocis and Ansys. The approval, announced on the 20th, hinges on the sale of certain assets by both companies to mitigate concerns over market competition.

The FTC’s decision pertains to Syhocis’ acquisition of Ansys for $35 billion, approximately 50 trillion won. Both companies are key software providers to major South Korean tech firms like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, offering tools for designing semiconductor chips and related optical products.

The regulatory body raised concerns that the merger could stifle competition in three specific software markets: optical product design, register transmission level power consumption analysis, and photonics. The FTC determined that the combined entity could potentially leverage its dominant market share—ranging from 60% to 100% depending on the market—to implement anti-competitive practices such as price hikes and unfavorable trading terms.

To address these concerns, the FTC mandated asset sales in specific areas. Ansys is required to divest all assets related to its register market software, while Syhocis must sell off all assets linked to its optical and photonics market software.

This decision marks the first application of South Korea’s newly introduced corrective measures system for business combinations, implemented in August of the previous year. This system allows companies involved in mergers to propose remedies to competition concerns. The FTC stated it considered corrective measures submitted by both Syhocis and Ansys, and also consulted with 27 domestic and international companies, including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Apple, Google, and Qualcomm during its review process.

Lee Byung-gun, head of the FTC’s Business Combination Review Bureau, stated that this conditional approval is designed to safeguard competition and prevent potential harm to domestic semiconductor companies like Samsung and SK Hynix, especially amid increasing global competition in AI semiconductors and supply chain realignment.

Prior to South Korea’s decision, authorities in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Japan had also conditionally approved the merger, also requiring asset disposals. Reviews by competition authorities in the United States, China, Taiwan, and Turkey are still ongoing.

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South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has given the green light to the proposed merger between Synopsys and Ansys, imposing conditions for asset divestment. The approval, announced recently, mandates that Synopsys must divest certain assets to ensure fair competition within the market following the merger. While the specifics of the assets to be divested were not immediately disclosed by the KFTC, the decision indicates the regulatory body’s commitment to preventing monopolies and maintaining a competitive landscape in relevant technology sectors. The merger, which combines Synopsys’ expertise in electronic design automation software with Ansys’ strength in engineering simulation, has been undergoing scrutiny from antitrust regulators globally. The KFTC’s conditional approval marks a significant step forward for the merger, although further details regarding the required divestments are expected to be released in the near future to fully understand the implications of the decision on the companies and the industry.

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The definition of “high power” in laser technology is relative, changing significantly from sector to sector. While industries require robust power for material processing tasks like cutting and welding, the biomedical field operates with vastly different power scales. Clean energy research emphasizes precision at extreme energy levels, whereas military and defense sectors prioritize beam quality and resilience in harsh environments. Despite these varying interpretations, the pursuit of improved durability, precision, and control remains a unifying goal across all fields utilizing high-power sources.

Industrial demand is a major driver in the evolution of industrial lasers. Sectors like semiconductor manufacturing and automotive are consistently pushing for greater precision and efficiency, leading to a continuous need for more advanced laser systems. This demand directly influences the specifications for laser optics, with manufacturers striving to create components capable of finer focus, higher power handling, and enhanced durability.

Questions around the practical applications of increasingly powerful lasers are common as industry advances. However, these inquiries are seen as a way to refine development, ensuring efficiency in new products, rather than hindering progress. Once a higher-power laser becomes available, industrial customers rapidly identify new applications that benefit from the enhanced capabilities.

While some established laser processes in the 1 to 12 kW range are reaching limitations, new applications are fueling demand for even greater power. Plasma cutting customers are increasingly turning to lasers for their smaller heat-affected zones, cleaner cuts, and greater flexibility. In most cutting scenarios lasers in the 20 to 30 kW range with high beam quality outperform 40 to 50 kW lasers with lower beam quality. The rise of aerospace welding, electric vehicle production, and increased demand in heavy machinery and farm equipment are driving demand for 10 to 20 kW lasers. Specifically, electric vehicles and power storage solutions utilize thick copper busbars requiring high power and excellent beam quality, while thinner foil stacks benefit from high-power visible wavelength lasers for welding.

Advanced manufacturing, particularly in computer chip production, pushes power requirements even higher. Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, crucial for creating modern computer chips with nanometer dimensions, relies on CO2 lasers over 120 kW. Producing chips with structural sizes below 10 nm necessitates a shift to shorter EUV wavelengths, demanding megawatt peak pulse power, achieved by boosting the output of CO2 lasers via amplifiers.

Technology advancements in defense and directed energy applications, which have stringent demands for high power and beam quality, often trickle down to commercial industrial applications. The optics developed for defense and industry share significant overlap. Large laser facilities, such as those established in Europe, are providing researchers with access to petawatt-level lasers, furthering advancements in particle acceleration, drug discovery, and fundamental science. These extremely high-power systems also drive innovation in industrial optics.

Managing the immense energy output from high-power lasers without damaging optical components is a key challenge, prompting cross-sector research into advanced materials, coatings, improved surface finish manufacturing, and advanced cooling techniques. Developing laser mirrors with improved laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) is an active area of global research, with efforts focused on novel design strategies and deposition process optimization for dielectric layer stacks.

Dielectric layer stacks in coatings can introduce mechanical stress, which needs careful management. Large interferometers are used to verify surface flatness, which needs to be better than λ/10 at 633 nm over apertures larger than 300 mm for optimal high-energy performance. Strategies to mitigate coating stress include pre-curved substrates and stress compensation layers.

On the supply side, laser systems are becoming more accessible and integrated into various applications due to advancements in manufacturing. Mass manufacturing capabilities are leading to better cost structures for high-energy systems, expanding their commercial use. Additive manufacturing is one rapidly growing sector benefiting from laser integration due to its precision and minimal waste. Quantum technologies are also emerging as a high-energy laser application area, still facing challenges in cost, scalability and size.

Laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) is a critical performance factor for optics, particularly as laser power increases. While large optics are not exclusively for high-energy applications, they become necessary as laser power scales up. Industrial applications prioritize throughput and require reliable, high-repetition-rate, high-energy performance over long operational periods.

Optical coatings and thermal management are major challenges for high-power optics in industry, research, and defense, potentially leading to power loss, focal shift, or even component failure. Transmissive optical components are minimized in favor of reflective mirrors in high-power systems because it’s easier to reflect high powers than transmit them. LIDT, although crucial, suffers from standardization issues under the current ISO 21254 standard, leading to ongoing efforts to update it. Real-world application testing and multi-physics simulation are employed as alternatives. Accelerated lifetime testing and predictive lifetime analysis are becoming more relevant.

Standardization efforts for LIDT testing are progressing but require substantial revisions to ensure consistent and reliable comparisons. For extremely high-energy systems, guaranteeing optic durability can be challenging, potentially requiring reduced power operation or more frequent optic replacements.

For industrial applications, rigorous quality control is crucial to maintain resistance to laser-induced damage in optics. Future developments in high-energy laser optics are expected to focus on “smarter” optics, integrating sensors, artificial intelligence, and condition monitoring for process optimization. Antireflective coatings for sensor systems will become increasingly complex to accommodate angle dependencies in their properties. As high-power laser systems enhance in performance and application range, advanced sensors for monitoring and optimization will become increasingly important, influencing the design and functionality of integral optics.

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Researchers have developed a new method called Edge-Guided Analog-Digital Optimization (EG-ADO) for designing highly efficient and fabrication-robust mode multiplexers (MUXs). These devices are crucial for increasing data capacity in optical communication systems by enabling the transmission of multiple data streams over different spatial modes of light.

The EG-ADO method improves upon traditional design approaches by combining analog optimization for performance with digital optimization for ease of manufacturing. It works in three stages: first, it iteratively optimizes the material structure using an adjoint method to achieve high performance. Second, it employs an edge detection algorithm to convert the optimized analog design into a digital metamaterial design, which is easier to fabricate. This digital conversion also considers the manufacturing constraints of commercial foundries. Finally, a customized binary search algorithm fine-tunes the digital design to maximize performance. This approach significantly reduces computational resources needed for design optimization.

Scientists demonstrated the effectiveness of EG-ADO by designing a five-mode MUX on a standard silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. Simulations showed that the designed MUX could efficiently convert fundamental optical modes into the first five higher-order modes, with low loss and crosstalk. Importantly, devices designed with EG-ADO exhibit a linear scaling of computational complexity with the number of modes, a significant improvement over conventional methods that scale quadratically, making it particularly advantageous for complex, high-mode-count devices.

Fabricated four-mode and five-mode MUX devices using electron-beam lithography were tested. Measurements of the four-mode device showed low insertion losses and crosstalk across the C-band of optical communication wavelengths. The five-mode device also demonstrated excellent performance, with flat transmission spectra across the C-band.

To showcase the practical potential, the five-mode MUX was used in a high-speed data transmission experiment. Researchers achieved a transmission rate of 324 Gb/s over a single wavelength using the five modes, resulting in an aggregate data rate of 1.62 Tb/s. Furthermore, in a more complex multi-dimensional transmission experiment combining mode-division multiplexing (MDM) with wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) across 88 wavelengths, a record-setting total data rate of 38.2 Tb/s was achieved across 440 channels. This demonstrated the capability of the EG-ADO method and the designed devices for enabling ultra-high-capacity on-chip optical interconnects for future data centers and communication networks. The EG-ADO method and the resulting high-performance, easily fabricable mode multiplexers represent a significant advancement in integrated photonics and hold promise for meeting the growing demand for bandwidth in optical communication systems.

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In a breakthrough for optical engineering, researchers have developed a novel design methodology for freeform optical systems, significantly enhancing the precision and efficiency of these advanced imaging technologies. The new approach tackles the complex challenge of optical aberrations in freeform surfaces, which are increasingly used in high-performance systems due to their design flexibility.

The core of this advancement lies in a systematic method using Zernike polynomials to mathematically represent the shape of freeform surfaces. This representation, combined with principles from nodal aberration theory, allows engineers to predict and visualize aberration fields that arise from these complex shapes. The research team leverages aberration full-field displays, or FFDs, to pinpoint and correct specific optical errors by strategically applying tailored freeform adjustments.

Their design process begins by carefully selecting an initial optical system geometry that is inherently well-suited to freeform correction. For demonstration, the team focused on a three-mirror imager, meticulously choosing a configuration that maximizes the benefits of freeform surfaces while minimizing fabrication complexity. This selection process is guided by a set of filters that analyze the aberration characteristics of different geometries and their compatibility with freeform correction techniques.

The optimization method is iterative. Starting with a basic spherical mirror system, the researchers progressively refined the design by adding specific Zernike polynomial terms to the mirror surfaces. Each addition is carefully guided by the analysis of aberration FFDs, ensuring that the applied freeform shapes precisely target and neutralize the dominant aberrations, such as astigmatism and coma. This controlled approach differs significantly from conventional optimization methods, which often rely on broad, less targeted adjustments.

A key finding of the research underscores the superiority of this aberration-driven method over traditional optimization techniques. When compared to a conventional optimization process, the new methodology achieved comparable performance with significantly less complexity in the freeform surfaces. Specifically, the freeform departure, a measure of surface complexity, was dramatically reduced, particularly on the secondary mirror of the imager. This reduction in complexity translates to easier and more cost-effective manufacturing.

Furthermore, the research highlights the crucial role of initial geometry selection. By comparing the optimized performance of a well-chosen geometry with a less suitable one, the team demonstrated that geometry choice is the primary determinant of successful freeform system design. An alternative geometry, even with extensive optimization, yielded significantly inferior performance and required much more complex surface shapes, reinforcing the importance of the initial design choices.

This new aberration-based design methodology offers a significant step forward in the field of freeform optics. By providing a systematic and targeted approach to aberration correction, it paves the way for the development of more compact, higher-performing optical systems with reduced manufacturing challenges. The research suggests a future where freeform optics can be more readily and effectively implemented in a variety of advanced imaging applications.

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Resolve Optics, a leading OEM designer and supplier specializing in high-performance optical systems for satellite data relay, has addressed the critical requirements for optical lenses used in space operations. Mark Pontin, Managing Director of Resolve Optics, highlighted the growing demand for advanced satellite data relay systems driven by the increasing international need for data and telecommunications.

Pontin emphasized the significant role of radiation tolerance in space-based optics. He explained that satellite data relay systems operating in Earth orbit encounter varying levels of radiation, which directly impacts the optical components. To combat this, Resolve Optics utilizes specialized radiation-tolerant designs incorporating cerium oxide doped glass or synthetic silica. This approach allows their lenses to withstand substantial radiation doses, up to 100,000,000 rads, and temperatures reaching 55°C without performance degradation or discoloration, maintaining high image resolution and minimal geometric distortion across the 400 to 750 nm spectrum.

Addressing a frequent inquiry about the necessity of radiation-tolerant lenses for space applications, Resolve Optics clarified that cosmic radiation poses a considerable challenge to standard optical glass. Exposure to radiation can cause conventional glass to discolor, leading to a significant reduction in light transmission and impaired lens performance. While standard glass might suffice for short missions, longer space endeavors necessitate the use of specialized, radiation-tolerant glass like cerium doped glass to ensure continued optical performance.

Beyond radiation resistance, optics intended for satellite data relay systems must also endure the harsh space environment. These systems are constructed from materials selected to prevent outgassing in the vacuum of space. Furthermore, any significant airspaces within the optical system are vented to prevent pressure build-up and distortion of the optical elements.

With nearly three decades of experience, Resolve Optics has established itself as a reputable specialist in designing and manufacturing high-performance precision lenses and optical products for smaller production runs, consistently meeting stringent quality standards, timelines, and budget targets. Their expertise in providing radiation-resistant optical systems for spaceborne projects is widely recognized within the industry.

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