Fujitsu Quantum Devices, parent company of Fujitsu Compound Semiconductor, and the Electron Device Department of Sumitomo Electric Industries consolidated their compound-semiconductor-device businesses into a joint venture company, Eudyna Devices (Yokohama, Japan). Ownership is split 50/50. Former president of Fujitsu Quantum Devices Dr. Masumi Fukuta is chairman and chief executive of the joint venture. Dr. Nobuo Shiga, former manager of Sumitomo Electric's Electron Device Department, is president and chief operating officer. Eudyna Devices USA (formerly Fujitsu Compound Semiconductor), headquartered in San Jose, CA, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eudyna Devices and the North American sales, service, and design facility for compound semiconductor devices used in the data communications and telecommunications industry.
Meriton Networks (Ottawa, Ontario) selected Sanmina-SCI (San Jose, CA) to be its engineering and manufacturing partner. Sanmina-SCI will provide end-to-end services, from optical-design engineering to fabrication, assembly and chassis integration, and test for Meriton. In addition, Telecom Ottawa selected Meriton's managed High-Speed Metro architecture to extend its network for delivering Gigabit Ethernet services. The agreement includes the full Meriton architecture, which comprises the 7200 OADX metro core wavelength networking system, 3300 OSU metro/access devices, 8600 NMS network management systems, and 8300 EMS element management systems.
360networks (Vancouver, British Columbia), provider of wholesale and communications services in North America, selected Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) to provide optical-networking equipment as part of a network expansion. Lucent will supply 360networks with the LambdaUnite MSS to integrate its regional networks with its core optical network. The equipment will enable 360networks to expand new services such as Gigabit Ethernet outside major metropolitan areas without the need for an overlay network.
LxSix Photonics (St. Laurent, Quebec City) and Gould Fiber Optics (Millerville, MD) signed a memorandum of understanding to write fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) on Gould prepackaged fiber devices. Gould will use the processed FBG package to fabricate devices that exploit the optical properties of Bragg gratings. Applications include WDM couplers and filters for both telecommunications and military customers.
Sorrento Networks (San Diego) and Xtellus (Morris Plains, NJ) are cooperating to implement reconfigurable intelligent optical networks. The joint effort is partially supported by the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation. The collaboration will see the addition of fully reconfigurable optical add/drop functionality to Sorrento's DWDM GigaMux system. Xtellus will supply to Sorrento a programmable wavelength selector as an enabling platform.
Optical-switch provider Continuum Photonics (Billerica, MA) closed an additional round of more than $17.5 million in its Series C financing. A new investor, JK&B Capital, led the oversubscribed round, with significant participation from additional new investor Boston Millennia Partners. Prior investors Prism Venture Partners, Flagship Ventures, Harris & Harris Group, Gainesborough LLC, and private individuals also participated in the round. With the completion of this latest financing, JK&B Capital partner Al DaValle has joined Continuum's board of directors.
Fiberxon (Santa Clara, CA), provider of optical access modules with facilities in Chengdu, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, closed its $10-million second round of funding. With JAFCO Investments as the lead, other financing participants include Apax Partners and several strategic investors from within the optical industry.
ADVA Optical Networking (Munich, Germany, and Mahwah, NJ), reveals that its OEM contract with Siemens Information and Communication Networks (Munich) has been extended to include ADVA's Fiber Service Platform (FSP) 1500 product. Siemens will market the customer premises traffic aggregation platform as part of its SURPASS hiT portfolio of products. Meanwhile, ADVA and CNT (Minneapolis) announced that ADVA's FSP 3000 Slimline is delivering 10 Gbits/sec of bandwidth across the 2,600-km Polish Optical Internet initiative called PIONIER. The Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC)—one of PIONIER's R&D centers for next-generation networks, grids, and portals—deployed ADVA's FSP 3000 Slimline in combination with the Extreme Networks (Santa Clara, CA) Black Diamond switches. CNT managed sales and logistics; the equipment has been integrated into the PIONIER network by ALMA, a local systems integration company.
u2t Photonics (Berlin) has been selected by Stratalight Communications (Campbell, CA) to be the primary supplier of 43-Gbit/sec photodetectors for the latter's OTS-4000 transport subsystem products. First shipments of the photodetectors were made in January. The contract runs through mid-2005.
BroadLight (Ramat Gan, Israel) received a U.S. patent that covers a method of receiving burst-mode traffic over passive optical networks (PONs). U.S. patent #6,686,799, "Burst Mode Limiter-Amplifier," includes technology the company has incorporated into its broadband PON optical line terminal to enable its system to accommodate burst-mode traffic.
SK Group, Korea's third largest conglomerate, deployed XDM multiservice-provisioning-platform equipment from ECI Telecom (Petah Tikva, Israel) in a multimillion-dollar project to advance its existing network in preparation for 3G mobile services. The infrastructure redevelopment benefits two companies under the SK Group umbrella: mobile service provider SK Telecom and carrier's carrier SKNetworks.
China Network Communications Group (CNG—Beijing) will use the Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA) 10000 Edge Services Router as part of an expansion of broadband services in China's Shandong, Liaoning, and Hangzhou provinces. Combined, the three provinces have more than one million broadband subscribers, but demand for services is expected to double over the next year. CNG expects this growth to come from both residential and commercial subscribers.
NTT Communications chose the Traverse multiservice transport platform from Turin Networks (Petaluma, CA) to support its Ethernet leased-line services. NTT is rolling out the service, called Ether Arcstream, nationwide in Japan to both enterprise and Internet service-provider customers.
Harbour Networks (Beijing) is using the Mindspeed Technologies (Newport Beach, CA) TSP traffic-stream processor in Harbour's Bighammer 6800 series backbone intelligent multilayer switch. The TSP CX27470 is integrated on the 8 × 155-Mbit/sec ATM line card for the Ethernet switch contained in the Bighammer 6800. The CX27470 delivers such traffic management functions as scheduling, shaping, policing, queuing, buffer management, congestion control, statistics, and alarms.
China Telecom (USA) (Herndon, VA) signed a contract with CommVerge Solutions (Hong Kong) for the deployment of optical transport systems to enhance the carrier's existing core network connection to the United States. With nodes already installed to connect China Telecom (USA) customers in several U.S. cities, the optical transport expansion will help the carrier provide faster and easier access to its network.
Fujitsu Quantum Devices, Mitsubishi Electric, Oki Electric Industry, Opnext, and Sumitomo Electric Industries formed a multisource agreement (MSA) to establish compatible sources of 10-Gbit/sec TOSAs and ROSAs for use in the 10-Gbit/sec XFP MSA-defined module, standardizing the common mechanical dimensions, footprint, and pin functions of TOSA/ROSA devices...