Finisar acquires AIFOtec, a German fiber-optic component maker
At the same time, Finisar announced that it would use the acquisition as an opportunity to strengthen its sales and marketing presence in Europe for its optical components and subsystems. The new company will be known as Finisar Europe, GmbH.
"We believe that the technologies and processes developed for telecom applications at AIFOtec can be readily applied to products for datacom and metro access applications," said Jerry Rawls, Finisar s President and CEO. "Furthermore, we are adding some very talented people whom we believe will have a large impact on our optical subsystem business. AIFOtec will enable us to produce optical products with higher levels of performance and lower manufacturing costs."
At the recent ECOC show in Amsterdam, AIFOtec demonstrated its hybrid integration technology (HIT) platform which combines a fiber grating laser (FGL) with a silicon optical bench. The FGL consists of a Fabry-Perot laser chip combined with an external fiber grating. AIFOtec s devices incorporate an integrated spot-size converter, which greatly reduces coupling losses into the fiber. The HIT platform utilizes v-grooves in the silicon bench to hold the fibers and flip-chip bonding to mount the active components. For example, a multi-wavelength array can be assembled by mounting several lasers onto the platform and attaching fibers with different gratings. AIFOtec uses passive alignment techniques and is focusing on automated manufacturing. Although Fabry-Perot laser chips can be manufactured with much higher yield than DFB lasers, one disadvantage of FGLs has been wavelength drift and deteriorating performance over time. AIFOtec has developed a control feedback IC that stabilizes the emission wavelength of the device without using additional optics.
Finisar Corporation manufactures fiber-optic subsystems and network performance test systems which enable high-speed data communications over Gigabit Ethernet local area networks (LANs), Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs), and metropolitan area networks (MANs). The Company is focused on the application of digital fiber optics to provide a broad line of high-performance, reliable, value-added optical subsystems for networking and storage equipment manufacturers.
Steve Workman
Chief Financial Officer, Finisar
Tel: +1 408-548-1000
E-mail: investor.relations@finisar.com
Web site: http://www.finisar.com
