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ASOC technology is the fabrication of integrated optical components from a base material of silicon. Silicon has excellent optical properties including a low optical loss at 1310nm and 1550nm - the wavelength bands at which to transmit telecommunication signals. Silicon is the world's best known manufacturing material and benifits from the mature manufacturing processes of the microelectronic industry to significantly reduce the complexity of design and manufacture.
Manufacturing ASOC devices fundamentally involves the construction of low-loss, single-mode waveguides onto silicon-on-insulator wafers. Library elements, such as couplers and modulators, and hybridized active elements, such as lasers and photodiodes, are combined to provide devices with a wide range of functionality. Consequently compact and versatile integrated optical components can be produced in high volume and at low cost. The flexible nature of ASOC technology means it can also be utilised to provide application specific, high functionality, high value devices including Arrayed Waveguide Gratings (AWG) and Variable Optical Attenuators (VOA).
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