IN Brief:
- Iris 100 measures spectral response, per-pixel luminance, uniformity and optical defects across microLED arrays containing millions of emitters.
- The system integrates with UltraFLEXplus for combined optical and electrical testing at wafer and final-test stages.
- Teradyne plans to extend the same test insertion towards photodetectors as optical semiconductor manufacturing develops.
Teradyne has introduced Iris 100, a production optical-test platform designed to characterise individual emitters across microLED arrays while integrating the measurements with its UltraFLEXplus semiconductor test system. The equipment supports wafer and final test for devices aimed at augmented-reality displays and emerging optical interconnect applications.
MicroLED arrays can contain hundreds of thousands or millions of emitters, turning optical inspection into a manufacturing-throughput problem once a device moves beyond engineering samples. Iris 100 combines a spectrometer with a high-resolution camera to measure spectral response, per-pixel luminance and uniformity while identifying defects including dead pixels, stuck pixels and clusters of faulty emitters.
Teradyne uses parallelised measurement and image-processing algorithms to characterise complete arrays rather than treating every emitter as an isolated laboratory test. Its calibration workflow is traceable to NIST standards, giving manufacturers a route to compare absolute measurements between production lots, wafers and manufacturing locations rather than relying only on relative optical inspection.
Emitter-level screening becomes more valuable as the device moves towards high-density applications. Display products can sometimes tolerate or compensate for a limited number of defective pixels, but optical-interconnect applications impose different requirements on emitter uniformity, output and consistency. Where individual microLEDs form part of a communication path, their optical behaviour becomes a direct part of system performance.
Iris 100 integrates with Teradyne’s UltraFLEXplus platform, bringing optical and conventional electrical semiconductor measurements into one production environment. The company’s IG-XL software is used for test development and execution. The combination is intended to reduce the need to move devices between standalone optical equipment and automatic electrical test systems during manufacturing.
The launch follows recent expansion of UltraFLEXplus for high-performance AI semiconductor testing. Those additions addressed electrical and power requirements around advanced digital devices, while Iris 100 extends the platform into an optical measurement domain where production equipment has traditionally been more fragmented.
Throughput is central to the development. Laboratory instruments can provide highly detailed characterisation of individual microLEDs, but measurements that are acceptable during development can become too slow when every production wafer or finished array has to be screened. Parallel test and automated defect classification therefore have to preserve enough measurement quality without allowing optical inspection to dominate manufacturing cycle time.
Early defect detection also protects downstream assembly value. Rejecting a faulty array at wafer level is considerably cheaper than finding the defect after the device has been incorporated into an advanced display or photonic package. The same economic logic is driving additional known-good-die screening in chiplet and high-bandwidth-memory manufacturing, where packaging cost can exceed the value of an individual die.
Teradyne has been broadening its optical semiconductor test activity beyond conventional automatic test equipment. Iris 100 follows its Photon 100 system for silicon photonics and co-packaged optics, while the company acquired photonics test specialist Quantifi Photonics in 2025. Teradyne also plans to extend the Iris platform towards photodetector testing, allowing light-emitting and light-detecting structures to be characterised within related production flows.
The challenge for microLED production will be maintaining complete emitter-level information as array sizes and manufacturing volumes rise. AI optical interconnects could push uniformity and known-good-device requirements beyond those of many display products, while display makers themselves continue to increase pixel density. Iris 100 moves that measurement task further into conventional semiconductor production infrastructure, where throughput, traceability and repeatable wafer-level screening matter as much as laboratory optical performance.
