Novel Skunkworks Team Speeds Go to Market in Mere Months

3SAE and Aikidovation Join Forces in new Scaling-forward Alignment Solution for Silicon Photonics Test and Assembly

SILICON VALLEY, CA, UNITED STATES, May 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The 3SAE OctaPod™ was unveiled at this year's Photonics West trade show as a task-oriented micro robot designed to eliminate the alignment bottleneck in the escalating production of silicon photonics (SiPh). A team of 3SAE experts and consulting firm Aikidovation, led by industry pioneer Scott Jordan, came together to develop this new solution in a rapid process.

Teamwork Accelerates Product Development
“It's remarkable,” emphasizes Don Grasso, chief executive officer of 3SAE, “that our joint team was able to implement the project within a few months. The rapid launch meant our team was able to present our new solution in compelling, live demonstrations at Photonics West and OFC, and start informing customers about this new application enabler.”

Jordan’s firm played a role in helping open up new opportunities for 3SAE. “With his years of experience in alignment solutions for optics and photonics, Scott helped us build on the proven PentaPod^® platform to achieve outstanding performance in an intense market segment and offer our customers an unusually compact, efficient and cost-effective solution,” Grasso explains. Jordan, who recently founded Aikidovation to catalyze strategic and technical innovation, points out that eliminating throughput bottlenecks is an important profit driver in the marketplace.

Alignment Speed Matters in Silicon Photonics
"In photonics manufacturing, every second costs money,” he says. “This is especially true for alignment, which is required for multiple essential production steps such as wafer probing, chip testing and multiple assembly steps,” Jordan says. “Consequently, speed of alignment is highly leveraged in the cost-effectiveness of manufacturing silicon-photonics components, and alignment accuracy goes straight to yield," he adds.

“The powerful 3SAE OctaPod™ photonic alignment micro-robot avoids many of the pitfalls and costs associated with legacy architectures. It is faster, more robust, cleaner, easier to integrate and proven more reliable over many hundreds of PentaPod^® installations in mission-critical fiber optic applications,” Jordan points out.

Inspired by the legendary Lockheed Martin Skunkworks, Aikidovation’s Skunkworks-as-a-Service offers autonomous innovation, cooperative prototyping, seamless integration into the client’s engineering process, risk minimization, and application emphasis. “Skunkworks as a Service brings speed, focus, expertise, confidentiality, risk management, and ultimately a continuous pipeline of innovative solutions,” Jordan says.

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Media Contact:
Scott Jordan
Email: scott.c.jordan@aikidovation.com
Phone: 1 (408) 565-5007

About Aikidovation
Aikidovation™ LLC is a Silicon Valley–based consultancy specializing in growth acceleration, innovation strategy, and organizational turnaround for semiconductor manufacturing and advanced technology companies. Aikidovation™ LLC was founded by Scott Jordan, a physicist and MBA with a background in new venture management and innovation. The firm combines deep technical expertise, market insight, and execution discipline to help clients identify opportunities, differentiate meaningfully, and deliver rapid results.
Aikidovation’s foundational principles include:
• Innovation can be managed
• Innovations are often best driven by focused, separated teams, then merged into normal developmental flows
• Ad hoc teams of talented contributors working towards a common goal are key to revolutionary productivity
• A stagnant situation can be transformed by this catalytic, external, customer-centered structure
• Problems exist to be solved. There is no such thing as impossible!
For more information, visit www.aikidovation.com or contact info@aikidovation.com.

About 3SAE Technologies Inc.:
For nearly 25 years, 3SAE Technologies Inc., headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee, has been a technology company specializing in the development of high-performance fiber optic tools and technologies for fiber optic preparation, fiber optic fusion splicing, fiber optic glass processing, and related applications. With a focus on innovation, 3SAE holds multiple patents and continuously adapts to industry needs. With global reach, 3SAE consistently delivers industry-leading sales, service, and support as we continually introduce product innovations that enhance capabilities at many of the world’s leading fiber optic laser, medical, defense, and optical components manufacturing facilities. In addition, 3SAE provides support to numerous universities and government research labs.

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