<<Sector, which companies, with greater marketing skills, more engineers, wider reputations, and far, far deeper pockets, are doing R&D in the exact same areas as KVHI?>>
None that I am aware of BP, and certainly none that can eliminate the E-O microchip, and absolutely none that could come close to matching KVH's cost of production, or that can work beyond 40Gbps.
Let me clarify that a bit. Are other companies doing R&D on high-speed optical modulators? Yes of course, and they have them working too. But most of the companies, such as JDSU, Agilent, Agere, etc are working with crystaline materials like GaAs, LiNbO3, or InP, all of which are difficult to work with, and run into physical physics limits between 10Gbps and 70Gbps that gives them poor specs at 40Gbps, and will not work at all beyond the 40Gbps generation.
When it comes to high speed components that will outperform crystalline material based components at 40Gbps, and will also be able to handle at least 1 4X generation beyond that (good enough for the next decade at least), you have to go with electro-optic polymers.
And the only three companies I am aware of working on polymer based optical components are Lumera (MVIS), KVH and PacificWave. And like I said, only KVH has an all-in-the-fiber technology, for practically no optical loss, high extinction ratio, and extremely low voltage.
KVH will be able to sell their modulators for $1,000 (or less in volume quantities), and make a high margin return too, whereas JDSU sells their 40Gbps modulator in volume for $6,000 each.
Which is why this presentation is very important to understanding the opportunity KVH has before it.
BTW, did you catch Dr. Dalton's statement near the end of the presentation, that E-O materials will ultimately kill off the LCD industry? |
