Yokogawa to build $230m chip fabrication facility
Yokogawa Electric is to invest ¥25 billion ($230 million) in a large compound semiconductor chip fabrication facility near Tokyo.
The industrial giant, which specializes in automation and control systems, digital sensors and test and measurement equipment, says that it has developed an optical packet switch for next-generation communications networks operating at 40 Gb/s.
"In January this year, Yokogawa carried out the first ever practical demonstration of image data transmission over an optical packet network," said the company in a statement.
The all-optical switch technology is based around a III-V chip that can route signals without the need for electronic conversion. The device can switch in less than 2 ns, which Yokogawa says makes it the world's fastest current-injected optical switch.
According to Yokogawa's release, the company is building the new fab quickly so that it can commercialize the optical switch in 2006. Production of compound semiconductor chips is set to begin in November of next year.
The five-storey Sagamihara site of the fab, which is in Kanagawa Prefecture, will employ 200 staff across its 28000 m2 floorspace.
Yokogawa says that it expects to see large-scale investment in the optical communications equipment market as service providers switch from electronic to photonic links.
In November last year, the Japanese communications giant Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, better known as NTT, announced its intention to build extensive optical networks as part of its planned $47 billion overhaul of communications infrastructure (see related story).
Yokogawa reckons that it can cash in on the upgrade cycle and estimates that its optical communications equipment business will generate annual sales of ¥100 billion ($919 million) by 2010.
