Precision Motion Control Technologies for Industry, OEM & Research

PI (Physik Instrumente) provides the broadest and deepest portfolio of precision motion technologies in the world. PI USA complies with the US laws for export controlled technologies.

 

PI is a privately held company that designs and manufactures world-class precision motion and automation systems including air bearings, hexapods, and piezo drives at locations in North America, Europe, and Asia. The company was founded 5 decades ago and today employs more than 1700 people worldwide

Our customers are leaders in high-tech industries and research institutes in fields including photonics, life-sciences, semiconductors and aerospace and our solutions have enabled them to make countless breakthrough developments and discoveries.

PI (Physik Instrumente) LP, the US operation of the PI Group, operates five facilities in North America, with its head office in Auburn, MA and additional design and manufacturing facilities in New England. 

PI USA is ITAR registered and equipped to handle your COTS or custom precision motion control / piezo / nanopositioning systems requirements.  A published price list is available on request. 

US Headquarters
16 Albert Street
Auburn, MA 01501
Directions

(508) 832-3456

Los Angeles Area
5420 Trabuco Road, Suite 100
Irvine, CA 92620-5743
Directions

(949) 679-9191

Silicon Valley Tech Cener
48389 Fremont Boulevard, Suite 108
Fremont, CA  94538
Directions

To contact Human Resources about a non-job opening related issue, send an email to hr.us@pi-usa.us or call us at 508-832-3456 x242. Resumes sent via email will not be considered for job openings.

PI USA Air Bearing Group: Building on Decades of Experience with Industrial Automation for 24/7 Operation

PI USA has made significant investments for the design and manufacture of air bearing positioning products. To keep up with the growth, a new facility in Hopkinton, MA was added to the existing company structure to host PI’s engineering and manufacturing group at the end of 2014. Around the same time, PI USA finalized the purchase agreement with Nelson Air Corp of Nashua, NH, a small but highly specialized manufacturer of air bearings and air bearing stages located about an hour north of Auburn.

The PI Nashua group utilizes a number of modern Haas CNC machines and high precision Okamoto grinders and now works closely with the PI Hopkinton team. The PI Hopkinton team is headed by Phil Greene, former VP of engineering for Danaher / Dover Instruments. Phil and his team have designed and built hundreds of air bearing systems for industrial automation in applications ranging from semiconductor metrology to flat panel inspection and data storage.Together with the acquisition of Nelson Air, PI USA is building on three decades of air bearing experience, including design, controls, and manufacturing from the ground up.  PI’s purchase of ACS Motion Control in 2017 was another piece to the puzzle of delivering world-class precision motion and automation systems.

Products Overview        More Product Videos

Working with You

PI’s in-house engineered systems and components have enabled customers around the world to increase their productivity and technological advantage for 5 decades. A sample of collaborative work with our customers can be see in the videos below. With a large basis of standard precision motion products and proven methodologies, PI is in the position to quickly modify existing designs or provide a fully customized OEM solution to fit the exact requirements of your application from the whole motion range from finger-tip sized nano-positioners to large scale stages with long travel ranges, through a plethora of different drives and guiding systems.

PI Headquarters, Karlsruhe Germany

World-Class Nano-Metrology Labs

PI's Nanopositioning products are world-known for their precision. To continuously improve our products and to verify the performance, we have designed world-class nanometrology labs, with six-fold-isolation, on a separated foundation in the basement of the factory.

Sub-nanometer resolution measurements not only require highest precision measuring equipment (we use world-class laser interferometers and capacitive sensors), but also an environment with extremely high temperature stability and total absence of vibration. The acoustic sound waves of a conversation alone can excite vibration in the range of several 10 nanometers. Vault-like doors keep noise out of our nanometrology labs.

Learn more about Metrology at PI

 

In January 2017, PI acquired the majority shares of ACS Motion Control. More information

PI miCos, Eschbach Germany

PI miCos: Motorized Precision Positioners, Vacuum & Cryo Systems

PI miCos was founded in 1990 and became a member of the PI family in late 2011. After its recent expansion, PI miCos has 50,000 square ft to focus on novel product and systems development. PI miCos employs over 60 PhDs, engineers and physicists, as well as highly qualified technicians with specialties in motion control, robotics and optics. Equipped with state of the art machines, the in-house precision machine shop manufactures systems and components with high-precision and superior quality. After in-house assembly, every product is inspected by quality department before it is delivered to the customer.

    PI Ceramic, Lederhose Germany

    PI Ceramic: Custom Piezo Ceramic Production Capabilities for Highest Performance Actuator and Sensor Sub-Assemblies

    PI Ceramic, a member of the PI family of companies, currently employs more than 330 people dedicated to designing and manufacturing the highest quality piezo ceramic assemblies.

    Production equipment includes tape casting, sputtering, automated metallization, grinding and cutting machines.

    PI Ceramic's ceramic-insulated multilayer PZT actuators passed a 100 billion cycle stress test by JPL/NASA and are used on the Mars Rover Curiosity.

    Learn more about PI Ceramic’s large selection of Piezo Transducers for Sensing and Ultrasound, including PZT and lead free materials. Additional application articles on piezo transducers can be found in our technology blog.

    PI Motion and Positioning Application Solutions

    Nanopositioning / Motion Control / Piezo Technology

    PI's Nanopositioning products have won many international industry awards for innovative design. Examples are the Hexapod 6 Degree-of-Freedom Micropositioning and Alignment System, the ultra-high resolution Piezoelectric Scanning Stages and Active Optics (Beam Steering Systems). The PI line of piezoelectric actuators and nanopositioning stages are among the most sophisticated nanopositioning systems in the world, allowing extremely precise motion in the shortest possible time.

    Watch PI product and technology videos and animations Products Overview

    Related Products and Additional Resources

    PI Markets

    Industrial Automation​

    Industrial Automation​

    Industrial production processes place high demands on automated solutions: Increased productivity and quality, more flexible processes, shorter production times, and lower costs. The precision, throughput, availability, and scalability of the systems are important factors in this context. PI supports customers around the world with positioning solutions that achieve the desired performance.

    Microscopy and Life Sciences

    Microscopy and Life Sciences

    From genome research through the accurate diagnosis of illnesses to innovative solutions in surgery ‒ life sciences entail numerous disciplines in which new biomedical procedures are researched and devices are developed that are meant to improve the therapy for and quality of life of patients.

    Semiconductor Manufacturing

    Semiconductor

    PI offers motion and control solutions for the highest requirements of mask, wafer, and optics positioning in semiconductor manufacturing

    Active Alignment – Physik Instrumente Photonics LED Screen

    Photonics

    Thanks to its huge transmission capacity and low energy consumption, optical communication is penetrating more and more application areas. With the photonics market segment, PI helps with the alignment of optical components – from silicon photonics through photonic circuits to aligning lenses and prisms in discrete optics.

    Large-Scale Scientific Projects

    Experiments in laboratories or in large research facilities are indispensable when it comes to verifying theories empirically, gaining new insights, or reproducing results. PI supports scientists worldwide in the design of experimental setups and in positioning samples, optics, and detectors under extreme environmental conditions with high precision and reliability.