To: peggylynn who wrote (11011 ) 6/22/2000 8:12:00 PM From: pat mudge Respond to of 24042
I would assume that the competition would be getting some of the share that JDSU/ETEK had first dibbs on. However, JDSU is expanding production at OCLI. I assume this is to make up for any potential shortfall in thin film coatings from the DOJ ruling. IMO, it is excellent news as DOJ did not require an OCLI divestiture. - peggylynn To help understand what's involved, I've copied a couple segments from the DBAlexBrown Optical Networking report:Filtering/Wavelength Separation Technologies There are a number of different technologies used to separate wavelengths in a DWDM system such as thin film filters, fiber Bragg gratings and planar waveguides. our research indicates that over 70% of the DWDM sytems today use the thin film filter as the preferred technology. As channel counts continue to rise and spacing decreases 100Ghz and beyond, thin film filters become very expensive (almost double the cost per channel) compared to Arrayed Waveguide. In lower channel count systems, thin film filters remain clearly the lower-cost technology. Filter research is concentrating on decreasing cost and spacing for high channel count systems and on developing tunable filters that can be used in conjunction with tunable lasers for next generation systems and optical switches.* Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) Fiber gratings are devices that can be used for a variety of applications and are used in filtering, add/drop functions, and for compensating for dispersion. A fiber Bragg grating is essentially a filter, and acts like a mirror for a particular wavelength. It is a piece of fiber treated with two interfering beams of ultraviolet light that form an interference pattern within the core of the fiber. The ultraviolet light is used to permanently alter the refractive index of the core along the length of the fiber, which allows particular wavelengths to reflect. Fiber Bragg gratings are also used in dispersion compensation and gain flattening.* Arrayed Waveguide Grating (AWG) Planar waveguide gratings, or arrayed waveguide gratings, offer a second method to filter wavelengths of light. This technology, employed by Lucent Technologies in its DWDM systems, utilizes an interference effect between different waveguides of progressively longer optical path length on a planar substrate. Research and development continues on AWG in order to reduce cost of packaging and increase yields in order to make them more cost competitive with TFF(thin film filters) and FBG (fiber Bragg gratings). AWG is presently less expensive than TFF in high channel count systems given that a separate TFF is required for each channel whereas only a single AWG is required per fiber. Furthermore, advocates of AWG technology cite lower attenuation loss so high channel count systems using AWG can increase the distance between amplifiers. * ThinFilm Filter (TFF) Dielectric filters constitute a third type of grating. These thin film filters are used to maintain the separation between channels,a nd our research indicates this technology is the preferred method used approximately 70% of the time. Optical Coatings Laboratories (OCLI) manufactures about 80% of all DWDM thin filters. The basic science behind thin filters is well known but manufacturing to the required degree of precision is extremely difficult. The degree of difficulty increases significantly each time channel count increases. Thin film coatings, a few atoms thick, are deposited onto the surface of a material-like glass such that only a single wavelength can pass. Successive coatings are required for each individual wavelength to be used in the system. Filters require several hundred layers of deposition with extremely tight tolerances in large vacuum chambers. As wavelength count increases, the demand for lesser spacing between wavelengths becomes critical. OCLI dominates this technology with leadership in 100Ghz filters and is rapidly moving to the 50Ghz level. Thin film filters have been preferred because of this attractive relative cost (despite the manufacturing complexity) and solid thermal performance. Going forward manufacturers will need to address the issues increasing attenuation that occurs in high wavelength systems and TFF performance at 25Ghz. >>>> From H&Q's report at the time of the OCLI acquisition:Improves gross margin --- Through its existing joint venture, JDS Uniphase already purchases a majority of its thin-film filters for its DWDM modules from OCLI. Last quarter, 44%, or $39.2M of OCLI's revenue, was attributable to telecommunications, and 95% of this, or $37.2M, was sold to JDS Uniphase through the joint venture.