Taking the advice from Fuza, a poster on the CIEN thread, I looked up the web site of Lumenon, a manufacturer of DWDMs on a chip.
LUMM Feb 05 last = 0.937 change = +0.137 +17.12 vol = 230,000
They also are pronouncedly into plastic fiber optics, something that I have not read in the same sentence as DWDM, I don't believe, as the two are not ordinarily thought to be friendly to one another. Can they have something here?
DWDM-friendly plastic optical fiber [POF] to the home... now, there's a thought. But not quite.
lumenon.com
From their 'who we are' page
Lumenon - Corporate Background
Synopsis:
Lumenon specializes in a revolutionary kind of Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) component in the form of a compact photonic chip on silicon. Indeed, the Company has created a new platform technology for a broad range of innovative integrated optics components that allow it to sell into a variety of applications. These include long-haul and short-haul telecommunications, desk-top local area networks (LANs), multi-media LAN, Intelligent Home Network, as well as fiber channel.
History:
Lumenon was founded in Montreal in 1998 by two scientists, Dr. S. Iraj Najafi and Dr. Mark P. Andrews. The Company was created to capitalize on their widely publicized innovations in compact integrated optical cricuit design and glassy materials for integrated optics. (News Breaks: Opto-Laser Europe, February, 1997; Laser Focus World, August, 1997; and Optoelectronics Reports (SPIE), November, 1997.).
Our Goal
The world is experiencing a broadband communications revolution. Unprecedented traffic on optical networks has vaulted optical fiber into a position as a pervasive technology in the global economy. The optical fiber backbone of today's telephony networks is now crucial to the burgeoning Internet and expansion in commercial local-area and wide-area networks. Requirements for additional wired and wireless access lines to handle this expansion have exploded. Because of this growth, optical fiber - once viewed as having an over-abundance of bandwidth - is now increasingly burdened and unable to carry the rising tide of traffic.
All of this has left communications service providers hungry for bandwidth. As a result major carriers are now focusing on Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) as the bandwidth solution that allows them to increase fiber capacity and plan for explosive growth without laying down a single additional fiber.
Lumenon will be a major force in the large-scale production of a new and revolutionary class of high performance and cost-effective integrated optics components for the DWDM market.
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And from their products page:
Our Products
Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM):
DWDM is a core technology that satisfies the needs of communications service providers who are anxious to increase the capacity of optical fiber and to plan for reliability and open-ended network expansion without the cost of having to install more fiber. Trade analysts predict DWDM spending to reach $4.5 billion by 2001, and as much as $12 billion by 2005. The heart of the wavelength division multiplexing system is the DWDM component that separates and combines closely spaced optical wavelengths (channels). This component solves the bandwidth dilemma by multiplying the number of channels that just one optical fiber can carry by up to 40 or more times.
While existing DWDM solutions are cumbersome and expensive, Lumenon's revolutionary product will assert itself in the industry as a nimble and cost effective alternative to create virtual fiber cable. Lumenon is unique in the world in producing DWDM components in the form of miniature "optical chips" on silicon by its low temperature PHASIC™ manufacturing innovation. PHASIC™ stands for Photonic Hybrid Active Silica Integrated Circuit. The PHASIC™ DWDM process has been invented by Lumenon to produce DWDM components to replace fused cascaded fiber Bragg grating products, and dielectric thin film/micro-optical wavelength filters and routers in DWDM systems.
Lumenon offers a truly flexible combination of photonic materials and optical circuit design in a unique platform technology that can be tailored to fit a broad spectrum of communications applications.
Looking forward, our Phasic™ technology platform will be extended to produce a host of new products for industry and public sectors. These products include dispersion compensators, circulators, modulators, transceivers and receivers.
Plastic Optical Fiber (POF):
Plastic optical fiber is our second product. The need for bandwidth capacity that has created such a market potential for DWDM also creates significant potential for POF. This versatile and rugged ligthwave medium offers a future-proof solution to short haul (100 meters or less) data transfer applications such as LANs, where the bandwidth squeeze is the fundamental weakness. For high-speed applications such as multimedia, computer-based training, video communication, voice communication, and the internet, POF out-performs antiquated wire-based technology. Compared with glass in the final analysis, POF is cheaper to produce, easier to couple, and exceeds glass's reputation for robustness when it comes down to survival in the office and the home. Installation costs for POF are about 1/10th that of previous fiber optic equipment.
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Any thoughts?
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
