Mitel stock jumps 22% on news of fibre-optic coup
Bloomberg News
Friday, August 11, 2000
Mitel Corp. shares soared more than 22 per cent during yesterday's trading, their biggest one-day jump in more than seven years, after the semiconductor
maker said it has developed an inexpensive device to boost the capacity of fibre-optic networks.
The stock closed up $5.60 to $30.70 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Kanata, Ont.-based Mitel said its device is an improvement on dense-wave division multiplexing (DWDM) technology used by such companies as Brampton,
Ont.-based Nortel Networks Corp. and Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent Technologies Inc. to increase fibre-optic capacity.
Mitel's optical chip combines as many as 80 beams of light on a single strand of glass at a lower cost per beam than existing products made by other
companies, Mitel said.
"I think investors looking for optical news are excited by this," said Richard Woo, an analyst at Thomson Kernaghan & Co. in Montreal. "There is a demand
for these products for sure."
Mitel said it used semiconductor processes and a technology known as echelle grating to increase the number of beams an optical chip can handle. It said
arrayed-wave guides, a competing type of glass chip made by San Jose, Calif.-based SDL Inc. and others, are limited to a maximum of 40 beams because
of performance constraints.
Mitel said its new device, called LightRider, uses cheaper materials and is smaller than arrayed-wave guides. |
