23 October 2003 Singapore Lightwave -- DenseLight Semiconductors Private Ltd., already a key player in the SLED market, has announced its entry into the Passive Optical Networking (PON) component market. The announcement follows months of development, leading to several patents and products designed for mass manufacture at highly competitive prices, contends the company.
The early failures in the global PON market are attributed to many reasons, say DenseLight representatives, among them the high cost of terminal devices at the Optical Line Termination (OLT) and the Optical Network Unit (ONU). The company believes that mass-proliferation can only be enabled when devices at Gigabit rates can be made at a cost that the consumers can afford, something made possible by its operations in Singapore, a high tech manufacturing hub with very competitive cost structures.
Since February 2003, DenseLight's push for PON products has accelerated in pace and is now close to maturity. Product development concentrated on the manufacturability of true synergistic integration of optical and RF bi-directional components. DenseLight soon will be releasing prototype results on this development effort. The company contends that its optical components have enhanced optical signal isolation as well as greatly reduced manufacturing complexity--with RF signal-feeds for GPON, EPON, and BPON.
"PON is one of the key answers to fiber-starved FTTx access," says DenseLight chief executive officer Dr. Yee-Loy Lam. "For example, in Japan, access FTTH is now deployed at a rate of 70K units per month, according to published figures, and is expected to increase exponentially in the coming year. DenseLight recognizes the different markets (Japan, China, USA), appreciates their individual requirements, and is developing specific solutions for each one of them. Many performance proofs have been made on our designs, which has resulted in several patents filings," he adds. "We are confident of rolling out prototypes for sampling in the coming months, and we are already collaborating with a few strategic partners."