In brief: Ulm Photonics, Kyma, Infinera
Microsoft and Ulm extend laser deal
Computing colossus Microsoft has teamed up with German VCSEL specialist Ulm Photonics on its latest optical mouse product.
As the preferred supplier for the existing Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 and its notebook PC equivalent, Ulm Photonics has already delivered a substantial number of singlemode 850 nm VCSELs that have been used in the 2.5 million or so optical mice that Microsoft has sold in the past few months alone.
With Ulm also selected for the follow-up product family, that lucrative relationship is set to continue.
Ulm, which has sufficient capacity to make around 10 million laser chips per year, carries out all of the device processing steps in-house, while device assembly is outsourced.
Kyma offers GaN and AlN templates
GaN materials specialist Kyma Technologies has extended its substrate product line with new GaN and AlN templates.
The Raleigh, NC, company, which is best known for its development of single-crystal nitride material, says that the sapphire-based templates are available in two-, three- and four-inch diameters.
Company CEO Keith Evans says that while native GaN substrates remain the best long-term solution for high-performance wide-bandgap semiconductors, these templates are a useful solution in today's market.
The new products are said to feature a very low surface roughness and defect densities of 1x107 per cm2 or lower.
Infinera trio bag Kressel Award
Three engineers from photonic integrated circuit (PIC) pioneer Infinera have won the Aron Kressel Award in recognition of their contribution to the field of optoelectronics.
Charles Joyner, Radha Nagarajan and Richard Schneider from the Sunnyvale, CA, company will be presented with their gongs at the annual meeting of the Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS) being held in Montreal, Canada, on October 30.
Quoted on Infinera s own blog, epitaxy specialist Schneider said of the PIC development: "If I had known what I do now, I might have thought twice about starting this project."
The InP-based devices are deployed at the heart of Infinera's digital optical networking systems.
