Have you guys seen this article. Seems very SR like (except they have more believers, it seems). It's from the Nanovation & JDSUniphase & the Lightpath threads (in that order, I believe)
Message 12591253
Light sends streams of data in new technology
By John Dorschner
Knight Ridder Newspapers
If "The Graduate" film were being re-made today, the
sage businessman would not be telling the Dustin
Hoffman character that the secret of future success is
tied to plastics. He'd be recommending . . .
photonics.
Say what?
For those of you who haven't yet jumped on this
economic juggernaut, perhaps a definition is in order:
Photonics means the use of photons or light signals to
transmit and manipulate information.
Think fiber-optic cable. Think broadband Internet
access. Think of blue-chip companies like Corning,
whose stock has almost tripled in value in the past
year. Think of unheralded technology firms like JDS
Uniphase, whose stock increased tenfold in 1999.
Think of Nanovation, a small Miami start-up that has
received $56 million in venture capital in the past
year. Nanovation is at the core of the photonic surge
because it claims to have developed a tiny piece of
equipment that is being called "the Holy Grail of
technology," "as important as the transistor," or "the
nirvana of most photonic engineers."
A spokeswoman, trying to simplify a very
complicated concept, says, "Essentially Nanovation
has learned how to bend light."
Its device is an optic switch that manipulates and
directs information without converting it into
electricity. If it works, it will dramatically quicken the
flow of data and make high-speed Internet access
cheaper.
"The whole reason for our company," says
Nanovation Chief Executive G. Robert Tatum, "is the
insatiable demand for bandwidth. . . . This is a very
hot space -- and we're anchoring it down from
Bandwidth Bay," as he likes to dub Miami.
All the major photonic players in America, including
Lucent's Bell Laboratories and Corning, are rushing
to develop similar switches. All say they will be
manufacturing them sometime next year.
"This is a huge, big deal," says David Bishop, head of
Bell Labs' effort. "The company that can be first with
a practical and efficient optic switch can change the
landscape. ... Basically, these devices are likely to be
as revolutionary as transistors. ...
"I've been told there's a half-billion dollars in venture
capital to support technologies of small companies
trying to solve this problem. And I'd guess the big
companies in the industry, like ourselves and our
competitors, are spending another half-billion."
For good reason. "There's a pot of gold at the end of
the rainbow for this," says Bishop, "and everybody is
going after it."
Consider Qtera, a 15-month-old Boca Raton, Fla.,
company with a technology that concentrates on a
slightly different photonics problem: how to allow
light signals to travel farther without being amplified.
On Dec. 15, Nortel Networks announced it was
buying Qtera for up to $3.25 billion.
"They don't even have a product yet," says Paul
Polishuk, head of IGI Group, which analyzes the
telecom industry. "Nortel is spending $3 billion just
for a concept."
Photons, which are particles of light, can carry far
more information over fiber-optic cable than
electrons can over copper wire. Light also moves
several hundred times faster than electricity.
"In the ideal world," said Lawrence Gasman,
president of Communications Industry Researchers,
"everything would be built out of light. That's where
everybody thinks we're headed."
Until several years ago, fiber-optic cable basically
carried a stream of white light long distances. Then
came the explosion of Internet and data transmission
between computers. Suddenly, there was an intense
demand for the cable to carry more information.
Engineers came up with dense-wave multiplexing.
This allowed white light to be split into many
wavelengths, or colors, with each color representing
a separate stream of information. Instead of one
wave channel, cables suddenly could carry four.
Then eight. Now they're up to 40. By next year, they
may be up to 160 wave channels.
The more complex the signal, the more it has to be
manipulated. A lavender band, for example, might
need to be sent to Denver while the rest of the
channels go on to San Francisco.
At present, just about anytime information-carrying
wavelengths need to be handled - change directions,
be sorted into groups - all the channels must be
shifted from optic to electrical. The manipulation is
dealt with electrically, and then the signal is shifted
back to optic.
It would be as if a car traveling 75 mph on the
interstate had to go to an off-ramp, bounce around
on a dirt road for a bit and then shift back to the
freeway.
These cable shifts not only slow the signal, but they
make the system much more expensive by adding
additional processes. Hence the quest for the
"all-optical network."
Simple manipulation of light has never been a huge
problem. Scientists for centuries have known that
prisms can send light off in different directions and
separate colors. But what was needed for fiber-optic
cable was light manipulation at microscopic sizes.
"That's why you have this race to get the Holy Grail,"
Gasman said.
Nanovation's roots go back to 1996, when a group
of knowledgeable Canadian investors heard about an
interesting scientific paper about micro-circuit
technology written by Seng-Tiong Ho, a professor at
Northwestern University.
The group arranged for a trial at a Cornell University
lab. When the results looked promising, the investors
worked out a licensing arrangement with
Northwestern, which owned the discoveries of all its
professors. In exchange for building a micro-photonic
lab at Northwestern and paying royalties, the group
received worldwide production rights to Ho's design.
Tatum was brought in originally as a consultant. A
one-time vice president of technology with a General
Electric division, he has experience running tech
companies with medical orientations, such as
CardioDynamics International and Vitarel
Microelectronics Inc., based in San Diego.
When it came time to develop Ho's ideas into
products, Tatum was elevated to chief executive.
Tatum has been busy assembling a crew of telecom
pros, such as marketing vice president Michael
Hassebrock, who has worked at Lucent and AT&T.
Altogether, he has built a staff of 40 in Miami, with
35 scientists and others scattered elsewhere,
including the Northwestern lab, Scotland, Toronto,
Singapore and China.
Money keeps pouring in. The latest investment round
of $30 million, announced in December, was raised
from a dozen institutional investors in an effort
orchestrated by J.P. Morgan.
"Nanovation is a leader in pioneering and driving this
industry," said Bill Rabin, a senior analyst with J.P.
Morgan, when the funding was announced.
Earlier this year, Northwestern received patents on
Ho's innovations and Nanovation has 18 related
patents of its own.
Ho's technology is being used to build a variety of
devices, all of them focused on manipulating light by
optical means. The underlying concept involves
microscopic "wave guides," built with a planar
technology, in which the light is reduced to two
dimensions on ultra-thin integrated circuit boards. "A
planar structure is measured in billionths of a meter,"
said Tatum. "Ten of these photonic switches side by
side are not as thick as a human hair."
Tatum says that the Northwestern lab has already
built thousands of test devices and that he expects to
name Nanovation's first major customer in the weeks
ahead. "It is huge," he said.
Tatum expects to start manufacturing and shipping
products next year. He says Nanovation plans to go
public sometime next year, but the company's
Toronto investors' portion is already available in a
publicly traded fund there, Stamford International.
Because of the buzz on Nanovation, Tatum says, the
fund's shares have zoomed in the past year from 6
cents to $11.40.
"We honestly don't know of anyone who's directly a
competitor of ours," said Tatum. "We're working
with a very basic enabling technology."
He believes many other photonic companies -
including Qtera, Lucent, Nortel and JDS Uniphase -
will buy components from Nanovation.
However, many others are racing to get similar
products to market.
Scientists at Lucent's Bell Labs have developed an
optical switch using micro-electro-mechanical
systems (MEMS). Light is moved by a microscopic
pivoting bar that adjusts a gold-plated mirror so small
that 256 of them will fit on a chip the size of a
postage stamp.
Bishop, head of the MEMS project, believes the
technology of ultra-small motors will be
"revolutionary. It's what you call a disruptive
technology. In every technology area that I know
about, MEMS is a disruptive technology that will
change the paradigm."
The technology could result in tiny machines that
could be embedded in an ear to provide artificial
hearing.
"It could go into your bloodstream and fix things, like
'Fantastic Voyage'," Bishop said. "Or not fix things.
Like someone could make a targeted virus that could
crawl up your leg and go through your ear and hurt
you. People will be able to make MEMS machines
do just about anything."
Bishop says Lucent is the team to beat. "If somebody
else thinks that they can do it by next summer, bring
them on! That's when we're going to start shipping."
He adds that he's suspicious of Nanovation's
technology. "I've read the claims," he says, but has
yet to see any technical data to back it up.
Kevin Slocum of Soundview Technology, a
consulting group helping Nanovation, shrugs off Bell
Lab's suspicions. "The race is on. And the folks at
Nanovation are talking about doing things which
make them unique from what the MEMS folks are
doing. . . . Their technology looks pretty damn
promising. They're at the stage of developing
prototype products. Customers will be evaluating and
if that process goes well, this company will have a
phenomenal evaluation."
Meanwhile, Corning, the world's leader in the
manufacture of fiber-optic network materials, has
announced two optical switches. One uses liquid
crystal to manipulate the light waves. Corning said it
will have samples ready to be examined in the first
half of next year and a "pilot manufacturing line"
working in the second half of this year.
Merrill Lynch reports that JDS Uniphase has recently
purchased a wave-guide switching technology that
could be similar to Nanovation's, and Alcatel, the
French telecom giant, is promising optical switching
devices by the end of next year.
Gasman, the telecom expert, says it's crucial that
these companies not be late. "Ultimately, the capital is
going to dry up." Investors aren't going to keep
funding devices that are a year late in reaching the
market.
Gasman won't try to predict the winner: "We're in the
early stages with all these devices." |
