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Technology Stocks : New Focus, Inc. (NUFO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. K. G. who wrote (268)	2/20/2001 10:04:10 AM
From: Labrador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 475

It sure doesn't look like a good day here. Anyone brave enough to take a dip into NUFO? I thought that support was around $36. Is the JDSU/GLW slowness going to also affect NUFO?

To: D. K. G. who wrote (268)	3/7/2001 2:05:27 PM
From: D. K. G.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 475

Two startups turn spotlight on tunable lasers By Loring Wirbel EE Times (03/07/01, 9:20 a.m. EST) eetimes.com SAN JOSE, Calif. — Photonic-component manufacturers are getting a jump on the Optical Fibres in Communications conference (OFC), which opens March 19 in Anaheim, Calif. To prove they can compete with such established companies as Nortel Networks and JDS-Uniphase, startups are making early announcements of imminent volume shipments of tunable laser components for use in dense wave-division multiplexing and optical add/drop multiplexer applications. Iolon Inc., a spin-off of Seagate Technology Corp.'s optical storage research group, is moving into field trials of a tunable external-cavity laser optimized for 10-Gbit/second applications. Iolon marketing vice president Cindana Turkatte predicted that the superior spectral fidelity characteristics of the new laser source could all but eliminate the market for tunable lasers based on sampled-grating distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). But sampled-grating techniques also got a boost last week, when Network Photonics Inc. (Boulder, Colo.) announced a broad development pact with Agility Communications Inc. (Santa Barbara, Calif.) under which customized versions of Agility's new sampled-grating DBR laser will be developed for Network Photonics' upcoming CrossWave metropolitan transmission systems. The Agility and Iolon moves are the first of what is expected to be a month's worth of OFC-related announcements. Iolon uses standard silicon wafer manufacturing steps for micromachined mirror elements with external servo actuator mechanisms. It creates its 3-D microelectromechnical system structures through a deep reactive ion etch process. Distributed Bragg designs may still prove useful in some applications, Turkatte said, but she believes the Iolon product will largely displace fixed-wave distributed-feedback lasers. "While you could thermally tune a distributed-feedback laser, the fact that you tune them thermally makes them power-hungry, and they can't be tuned over a broad range." Interesting work is under way in academia and industry on sampled-grating DBR devices, Turkatte said, but the approach requires a complex monolithic chip that must be co-packaged with a modulator or semiconductor optical amp, yielding a structure that is both expensive and difficult to manufacture. Iolon also faces competition from external-cavity laser developers that use arrays of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). Companies like CoreTek (now part of Nortel), Bandwidth 9 and Novalux are developing some interesting tunable arrays, Turkatte said, but they must confront the manufacturing challenges of moving VCSELs to the 1,550-nanometer range while putting tuning mechanisms on top of the arrays. Iolon uses Fabry-Perot lasers and integrates the light sources with actuator structures developed at the former Seagate facility. Iolon claims a tuning range greater than 40 nm, in a window between 1,527 and 1,562 nm. The continuous-wave output power of the laser module is 20 mW. Typical relative-intensity noise is --145 dB/Hz. Turkatte said the new generation of devices will find use in metro and super-metro DWDM and in optical add/drop multiplexers and specialized access systems. Iolon is working with system manufacturers that want to combine the Iolon laser substructure with an external modulator, and the startup says it will soon collaborate with photonic component manufacturers in the markets for electro-adsorption modulators and optical amps. Meanwhile, Agility's work with metropolitan optical startups indicates that some equipment manufacturers are undaunted by the complexity of monolithic DBRs. Agility partner Network Photonics is developing dense wave-division multiplexing systems for super-metro networks that integrate mesh and ring optical topologies. Network Photonics president Steve Georgis said the broad development pact includes a multisource agreement, which assures Network Photonics of manufacturing backup for sampled-grating DBR lasers. Georgis said the key aspect of using the Agility components will be in combining the transponders with Network Photonics' proprietary all-optical switching fabric, CrossWave. Agility is working with Petaluma, Calif., startup Mahi Networks Inc. in addition to Network Photonics.