November 14, 1997
Lightwave Microsystems Goes a Second Round
SANTA CLARA, CA--In its second round of venture-capital funding, Lightwave Microsystems received $10.1 million, according to a September
17 company announcement.
The $8.2 million that the company received in 1996, during its first round of venture-capital funding, was used to establish an optical
integrated-circuit-fabrication line to produce prototype circuits for telecommunications, networking, and cable-television applications. The goal
of the current round of funding is to complete the developmental stages and ramp Lightwave into production, according to president and CEO
Michael Hess. "Lightwave Microsystems' mission is to become the leading producer of a new generation of optical circuits that will dramatically
lower the cost of building high-speed optical networks," he said.
The technological focus at Lightwave is on integrating multiple optical-transmission and processing functions into single integrated circuits
that can be mass produced. The strategy is based on thermally stable, nonlinear optical materials for creating discrete components; proprietary
software for combining components into applications-specific integrated circuits; and semiconductor-manufacturing technology to provide high
volume and reliability at low cost. The principals at Lightwave originally came together to start working on the technology in 1989.
Product development
Discrete components currently under development at Lightwave include single-mode power splitters in 1 x 8, 1 x 16, and 1 x 32 configurations,
dense-wavelength-division multiplexers and demultiplexers, 2 x 2 crosspoint switch elements, tunable attenuators, and modulators. Integrated
products that will be eventually based on the discrete components include a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer, an n x n switch matrix, a
DWDM filter with integrated attenuators, and a low-cost integrated transceiver chip.
The first round of funding for Lightwave came from Oak Investment Partners, Draper-Fisher-Jurveston, Worldview Technology, and ITech. New
investors for the second round include Weiss, Peck & Greer Venture Partners; Bessemer Venture Partners; Information Technology Ventures;
First Analysis Venture Capital; and Roberston, Stephens and Co.--HJ-B |
