Providing high-performance optics and electronics assembly

Optical Design Manufacturing

Looking for a partner who can design optical lenses? Need custom optics that are designed to be manufactured? SUPERIOR® Optics is a company with a highly skilled engineering team that has extensive knowledge in Optical Design Manufacturing processes. We serve companies in a variety of industries, including pharmaceutical, biomedical and life science, as well as industrial, consumer, and defense.

SUPERIOR® Optics works on over 40+ custom precision assembly projects annually, from prototyping to mass production. Our lens assemblies range from microscope objective lenses, expanders, to SWIR/ MWIR/ LWIR lenses and more. With our reliable optical & mechanical design capabilities, we are confident to achieve challenging assembly jobs.

Our optical design manufacturing cover feasibility research, design specifications verification, preliminary design analysis, and prototyping to volume production. We invite you work with us so that your optical products can be brought to market quickly and at the lowest possible cost.

Optical Lenses Designed for Manufacturing

It is not enough for optical components to work on prototypes. Each optical solution must meet more than the specs and functions. It also has to meet production feasibility criteria. It is important to choose a company that understands optical design manufacturing. SUPERIOR® Optics excels at optical lens design, but we are also an optical manufacturer. Our engineers design lenses with knowledge of the manufacturing process, limitations and costs.

ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) Optical Design

We provide ODM optical design services. We are often asked by our customers to optical design manufacturing lenses under their brand. A home planetarium manufacturer, for example, asked us to reverse engineer an excellent projection lens. Our engineers went beyond simply recreating the lens to create one that had even better optical performance. Our customer kept the branding, and the projector was successfully launched.

OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) Optics Design

Are you an OEM in need of optics design assistance? We can help you optimize your lens design for manufacturability (DFM) and make your lens product more feasible and affordable for production quantities. Our DFM input will cover material selection, tolerance and performance analysis, etc. You’ll have a design product with clear specifications and low manufacturing cost for meeting your customer’s objectives without over-engineering.

Related Optical Design

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Project Date: 24.02.2015

Project Budget: 10.000 USD

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Design of Lens Systems

Our optical designers work with you on every detail to meet the specified program’s requirements for your lens system. They consider optical design parameters such as f-number, object distance, fixed focus/autofocus, field of view (FOV), operating wavelength band, frequency range, MTF, scene dynamic range, distortion, chief ray angle (CRA), stray light requirements, and centration tolerances.

They validate the suitability of glass/plastic materials based on functional and optical design manufacturing requirements. Our optical designers can meet the demands of these high-performance systems, which are small in size, demand high tolerances, and have multiple constituent elements because of our experience and expertise.

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Optical Design Services
Key Details
Optical Design Services

Mechanical Design of Lens Systems

SUPERIOR® Optics’s mechanical design team works with our optical designers to consider parameters like ruggedization and centrication when designing the opto-mechanical system components. For system elements such as barrels, housings and retainers, material selection, shape and geometric dimensioning, tolerances and fit, along with surface finish, are all important factors to consider. Our products are superior because of the valuable input provided by our highly-skilled manufacturing engineers at the design phase.

Component Manufacturing

SUPERIOR® Optics offers a unique and useful advantage for all lens materials (glass, plastics or fused silica) on two fronts:

Vertical Integration (VI): We have in-house optical design manufacturing from design, optics/mechanical manufacturing, coating, diamond turning – nanomachining, tooling, and metrology, to module assembly and testing (in-line/end-of-line) for a wide range of optics materials all in one location;

Design for Manufacturability: The challenges of product development can be overcome if you apply the deep expertise and manufacturing prototyping capabilities to improve optics simultaneously, seamlessly and continuously. Mid-spatial-frequency (MSF) errors are an important DFM consideration for lens systems. Our engineers work with our customers one-on-one to solve DFM challenges.

The unique advantages of VI and DFM offer more benefits to customers. These include intricate manufacturing (for parts that are interrelated), rapid prototyping and scalability. Most importantly, it offers a path towards continually reducing size, weight and power (SWaP).

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Optical Design Services
Key Details
Optical Design Services

Optical Assembly

In comparison to our competitors, SUPERIOR® Optics has a certified Class 1,000 cleanroom used for the optical assembly that we use for testing precision polymer and glass optical systems and module integration that is highly sensitive to environmental particulates. We understand the critical need for axial alignment and precise optical pathway placement. Our assembly staff has years of experience and is skilled in centration, electro-optics integration, optical bonding, and sonic welding techniques.

In-Line Testing

SUPERIOR® Optics offers one of the most precise and fastest MTF (Modulation transfer function) measurement systems available for measuring camera module miniature lenses. This is the most advanced range of MTF measurement instruments to test the image quality of optical component. These instruments have a measurement precision of 0.8 % on-axis MTF and 1.5 % of-axis. They also measure samples in 1.3 seconds.

Key Details
Optical Design Services
Key Details
Optical Design Services

Electronic Assembly

SUPERIOR® Optics’s highly-skilled staff is able to overcome the challenge of active aligning and serial production of high precision camera module systems. A controlled and automated optical design manufacturing process ensures accurate, repeatable and fast assembly and alignment of camera modules. Active alignment reduces production rejects by optimizing image quality. Active alignment is a manufacturing technique for high-end cameras because of its high quality and increased yield.

End-of-Line Testing

SUPERIOR® Optics tests all camera modules to ensure they are performing as expected. End-of-line tests include measurement systems that meet more stringent standards for the characterization and assembly of camera modules. These new requirements must be met by the entire testing chain, including optical systems, sensor systems, and camera systems. Our systems are capable of measuring optical and optomechanical test parameters, such as MTF and image plane tilt and rotation, as well as sensor parameters, such as relative lighting or spectral responses. Our customers expect high-quality control from our highly automated and calibrated testing procedures.

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Optical Design Services

At SUPERIOR® Optics, as The Advantage for Optical Design Manufacturing

Our optical engineers are aware of the need to create products that can be produced cost-effectively and meet or exceed your requirements. We are looking forward to working with you to create an optical design feasibility, and provide estimates for volume and prototype production.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are some optical considerations for camera module design?

f-number, object distance, fixed focus/autofocus, field of view (FOV), operating wavelength band, frequency range, MTF, scene dynamic range, distortion, chief ray angle (CRA), stray light requirements, and centration tolerances.

2. What are the advantages of vertical integration (VI) and design for manufacturability (DFM) in camera module manufacturing?

In camera module manufacturing, VI and DFM offer advantages such as intricate manufacturing (for complexly interrelating parts), rapid prototyping, scalability, and, most importantly, a path to continually reduced size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C).

3. What are the components of the optical assembly in camera module manufacturing?

Axial alignment, precise optical pathway placement, centration, electro-optics integration, optical bonding, and sonic welding techniques

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