Furukawa to Invest 10.2 Billion Yen to Strengthen the Domestic and Overseas Production Systems for WDM Optical Components
Source: Furukawa Electric
Furukawa Electric is going to found a volume-production plant in Thailand as a 100 % subsidiary company for low-cost, mass-producible optical components. In addition, the company is going to set up a new plant in the Chiba Works as a foothold for research and development as well as for production of high-value added products. These investments are aimed at responding the growing demand of "long-haul WDM systems" and the potential demand of "metro WDM systems", which is expected to create a full-fledged market by the end of this year.
Details of the new plant in Thailand are as follows. Company name: Furukawa FITEL (Thailand) Co., Ltd.; President: Takahide Kimura; Place: Rojana Industrial Complex, 70 km in the north of Bangkok; Capital: 600 million bahts --about 1.7 billion yen; Lot area: 30 thousand m2; Floor area: 10 thousand m2. The plant will produce source lasers and Fiber Bragg Gratings in the immediate future. Source laser is used for metro WDM systems which are enjoying an increasing demand. And Fiber Bragg Gratings is used for wavelength stabilization of 1480-nm pumping lasers which has more than 70 % world s share and also used for Rainbow Pumping Lasers to be used in Raman amplifiers. The new plant will begin operation this summer and will be enlarged to a 500-employees plant by the end of 2001 through progressive expansion of facilities. The amount of investment for the initial stage involving the building and the land is estimated to be 3 billion yen.
At the same time, Furukawa is going to construct "FITEL Engineering Center" with a floor area of 19 thousand m2 in the Chiba Works, in which a set of equipment for processing the pumping laser chips will be installed along with a pilot plant for research and development. Furthermore, a 5.5 thousand m2 clean-room plant will be secured in an existing building for the development and production of passive optical components. When the two plants are in operation this fall, the production system of 1480-nm pumping laser modules --the mainstay product of Furukawa s optical business-- will be strengthened in that unforeseen risks in chip processing is decreased by the dual-base system based on the Yokohama and Chiba areas, and that an integrated production system ranging from chip to module is established in the Chiba Works thus improving production efficiency.
Moreover, the establishment of a new pilot plant will result in such advantages as establishment of a system for promoting the development and evaluation of new products including optical amplifiers, speeding-up of development programs for new products as well as hastening the launching of new products into the marketplace. The New Optical Components Plant will play a role of incubator for passive components, so that the new products will be transferred to Thailand as soon as their mass-production method is established so as to be cost competitive. A volume-production system for passive optical components will also be established to enable large volume exports to communications system manufacturers in North America and Europe wherefrom we are having a lot of inquiries.
The amount of investment for these domestic plants is estimated to be 7.2 billion yen. Furukawa intends, by putting these plants including the one in Thailand into full-scale operation by this fall, to maintain the world s top share in the Rainbow Pumping Lasers for Raman amplifiers in addition to 1480-nm pumping lasers, and also to be very active in expanding the passive optical components business. When the passive components business is established, Furukawa Electric will almost complete its in-house production system of such major components for optical amplifiers and Raman amplifiers as pumping lasers, passive optical components and special fibers. This will lead the company to be one of the top-three manufacturers in the world of optical components for WDM systems including optical amplifiers and Raman amplifiers.
Contact: Fitel Technologies, Inc., Clinton Evan Johnstone Tel: 908 713-3585
Fitel Technologies, Inc., Clinton
Evan Johnstone
Tel: 908 713-3585
