Bookham Technology And Cierra Photonics form optical-integration partnership to boost functionality of WDM products

Sept. 11, 2002
September 11, 2002--Bookham Technology plc and Cierra Photonics have formed a two-part technology and commercial partnership to bring the benefits of high integration-based functionality to WDM products.

Bookham Technology plc and Cierra Photonics have formed a two-part technology and commercial partnership to bring the benefits of high integration-based functionality to WDM products, such as optical add/drop multiplexers (OADMs).

The partnership, which runs initially for two years, allows both companies to exploit jointly the strengths of their respective and complementary optical-integration technologies to develop products and tailored solutions for their customers, say representatives of the companies. Bookham Technology is contributing its ASOC design and manufacturing technology for fabricating integrated optical circuits on a silicon substrate, together with its range of integrated GaAs and InP tunable lasers and modulators. Cierra Photonics brings to the partnership its range of thin-film filters, based on the company's Advanced Energetic Deposition (AED) technology, a process for waferscale integration that results in lower costs, high yields and improved optical performance.

In the second part of the partnership, Bookham Technology will exclusively distribute Cierra Photonics' complete range of optical channel filters in Europe, including the high performance terra-Q and solla-Q families.

"The world WDM market has evolved in the last year and is moving towards a much smaller number of suppliers who can offer a wider range of products and product capabilities to systems vendors," contends Steve Turley, chief commercial officer at Bookham Technology. "Combining the strengths of Bookham's and Cierra's integrated technologies will enable our partnership to address even more effectively the growing opportunity for OADM applications in the metro and access markets," he adds.

The partnership is designed to give customers the flexibility of standard or customized integrated optical filters implemented either by Bookham Technology's ASOC-based arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) technology or by Cierra Photonics' AED thin-film technology, according to specific requirements. Bookham's ASOC AWGs are suited for high channel count applications as well as multi-function product applications; additionally, special discrete functions can be added by hybridization. Cierra's AED's wafer-scale integration of fiber-optic components yields a range of products with improved performance in terms of insertion loss and channel separation. U

"The AWG and the thin-film technologies have their respective and distinct strengths, and by working together Bookham and Cierra can offer the best of both worlds for our customers' applications," asserts Turley. I

For more information about Bookham Technology plc (Oxfordshire, UK), visit the company's Web site at www.bookham.com. Additional information about Cierra Photonics (Santa Rosa, CA) can be found at www.cierraphotonics.com.

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