UK firm acquires Cornell VCSEL technology
BTG, a technology company based in London, UK, has acquired the exclusive rights to licence strain-compensated multiple quantum well (MQW) VCSELs developed at the Cornell Research Foundation in Ithaca, NY.
“The telecoms market is looking for a next-generation technology that will replace costly, low-yield devices, such as distributed feedback (DFB) lasers at 1300 and 1550nm,” said Jay Kshatri, vice president of BTG’s Semiconductors and Optoelectronics business unit.
“We believe that the strain-compensated VCSEL is that technology, and we are actively seeking licensees who are interested in integrating this technology into their commercial products.”
The Cornell-developed devices overcome the critical thickness constraint on the quantum wells used in conventional VCSELs by using strain-compensation. This allows many quantum wells to be stacked to form the gain medium without undue strain build-up, which is said to improve the performance of the VCSEL dramatically.
VCSEL-based transceivers operating at 850nm have become the dominant source for high-speed, very short-reach optical interconnects, such as Gigabit Ethernet and Fiber Channel.
With the advent of longer wavelength VCSELs operating at 1300nm and 1550nm, VCSELs may increasingly appeal to companies developing transceiver products for short and intermediate reach SONET/SDH and fibre-to-the-home applications.
Parallel VCSEL transceivers are said to be particularly attractive for back-plane interconnect applications.
