Source Photonics attracts more than $100 million in equity funding

Source Photonics says it has garnered more than $100 million in equity from new financial and strategic investors. The optical transceiver vendor did not reveal the names of the funding sources. However, at OFC 2019, Source Photonics CEO Doug Wright said they included three new investors.

The money will go toward increasing the company’s production capacity and R&D activities. These outlays include creation of a new laser fab in Jintan, China as well as upgrades to its existing facilities in Taiwan (see “Source Photonics opens laser fab and assembly facility in Jintan, China”). Source Photonics also plans investments in advanced coating technologies for next-generation lasers and transceivers. The new capabilities will better enable Source Photonics to take advantage of what the company sees as an increased demand for optical transceivers due to the roll out of 5G mobile networks as well as the expanding data center market.

“Exciting new applications such as the Internet of Things (IoT), vrtual Reality, and cloud services are growing in popularity every day,” explained Wright in a press release. “These applications all depend on the next standard of connectivity, and 5G depends on the backing of a world-class optical network. We are extremely proud that our investors have shown this confidence in us and are confident that the investment will support our ongoing work to enable the next era of connectivity.”

The company plans to display a new line of optical transceivers for 5G this week at OFC 2019 in San Diego. The optical module line, which features 25G, 50G, and 100G devices, includes:

• 25G SFP28 LR Lite, for 25G CPRI/eCPRI and 25 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) links up to 2 km on duplex single-mode fiber
• 25G SFP28 LR, for 25G CPRI/eCPRI and 25GbE links up to 10 km on duplex single-mode fiber
• 25G SFP28 20Km, for 25G CPRI/eCPRI and 25GbE links up to 20 km on duplex single-mode fiber
• 25G SFP28 BiDifor 25G CPRI/eCPRI and 25GbE links up to 15 km on simplex single-mode fiber
• 25G SFP28 LAN-WDM, which offers six channels from 1287 nm to 1309 nm; the device supports 25G CPRI/eCPRI and 25GbE links up to 20 km on duplex single-mode fiber
• 50G QSFP28 LR, for 50GbE up to 10 km on duplex single-mode fiber
• 50G QSFP28 ER for 50GbE up to 40 km on duplex single-mode fiber.
• 100G QSFP28 LRfor 100GbE up to 10 km on duplex single-mode fiber.

Supriyo Dey, senior director of product line management at Source Photonics, says the company has launched volume shipments of the 5G optical transceivers to multiple customers.

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