What’s the order for: Plastic QFN packaging (Livingston) and Test (Alter France) of voltage regulator ASICs.
Application: CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, CMS experiment. Proton beams are accelerated around a 27km tunnel under the France-Switzerland border. The beams are brought together to collide inside the CMS, a 15m diameter detector. The innermost part of the CMS are layers of silicon trackers/detectors which capture images to monitor the movement and energy of the resulting particles from the impact. The device we’re assembling provides regulated power to the silicon trackers.
Future potential: There’s a potential follow-on order for these devices in other CERN experiments, ~£100k. Becoming an approved supplier for CERN can generate plenty of future opportunities for Alter. This a first combining Alter UK and France capabilities to offer a “turnkey” assembly and testing solution in volume.
Comment: Great work by Stephen Robertson and Fredric Tilhac who convinced CERN about our technical ability to fulfil this project. CERN were also very impressed with the visit to Livingston, our factory is now a shining example we can be proud to show off to customers.
