CiDRA Corporation announced that it plans to demonstrate the first optical networking product to feature Texas Instruments Digital Light Processing (DLP) technology. CiDRA's AgileWave Dynamic Spectral Equalizer will provide performance while improving efficiencies and reducing costs for service. The will be exhibiting in Booth #103 at the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC), Rai Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 30-October 4.

CiDRA, as a supplier of enabling technology for next generation networks, will leverage TI's DLP technology and integrate it throughout the company's AgileWave product portfolio to provide other important optical functions.

CiDRA's AgileWave Dynamic Spectral Equalizer is an optical networking solution that integrates DLP technology, and is designed to be a programmable filter that can operate with spectral resolutions suitable for either tilt, profile, band or channel-by-channel gain/power-level balancing. DLP technology provides fast dynamic reconfigurability and proven reliability. The AgileWave Dynamic Spectral Equalizer is the latest addition to the CiDRA AgileWave family of products which now includes:

* AgileWave Dynamic Spectral Equalizer

* AgileWave Optical Channel Monitor

* AgileWave Tunable Bandpass Filter

The advantages that DLP technology brings to optical networking applications include:

* Accuracy: the digital nature of DLP technology allows optical data channels to be spatially shaped and controlled with digital accuracy.

* Speed: with micromirror switching times of ~15 microseconds, DLP technology provides rapid reconfigurability, allowing network architects to build better dynamic network systems with higher performance.

* Reliability: over 750,000 DLP subsystems have been shipped and have demonstrated outstanding reliability.

* Cost-effectiveness: volume production of DLP technology for projection and display applications makes it uniquely affordable for optical networking solutions.

Until now, DLP technology has been used almost exclusively in projection and display applications, but with the growing demand to create dynamic networks, the core advantages of the technology are a natural fit in optical networking. Since early 1996, over 750,000 DLP subsystems have been shipped to the projector industry.

At the heart of TI's Digital Light Processing technology is the Digital Micromirror Device optical semiconductor chip. The DMD switch has an array of up to 1,310,000 hinged, microscopic mirrors which operate as optical switches. For more information, please visit www.dlp.com.

About CiDRA:

Founded in 1996, CiDRA Corporation designs, manufactures and markets component, module and subsystem products for dynamic routing, monitoring and conditioning of optical signals. For more information, visit www.cidra.com.

About Texas Instruments:

Texas Instruments Incorporated provides digital signal processing and analog technologies. For more information, visit www.ti.com.