OpTun secures government grant, debuts switch/VOA
September 3, 2004 Munich, Germany. -- OpTun, GmbH (a subsidiary of OpTun, Inc. of Santa Clara, CA), has received a $1 million grant from the German Ministry of Research & Education to develop highly integrated devices in silicon oxynitride (SiON) for the DWDM telecom and optical interconnect industries. The company also introduced the S-VOA-C, an optical component that can be used as an optical 2x2 switch and single-channel variable optical attenuator (VOA).
The two-year award from the German Ministry will be used to pioneer the commercial application of optical switches, VOAs, and power monitors to provide monolithically integrated reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) modules. Resulting products will have a reduction of approximately 75% in footprint compared to conventional low-index silica-on-silicon technology, Optun predicts, thereby providing a cost savings of a similar magnitude as the number of chips per wafer increases. In addition, OpTun will apply its proprietary Controlled Mode Interaction (CMI) waveguide design on this high-index SiON platform to improve device robustness and manufacturing yield.
Meanwhile, S-VOA-C module is co-packaged with four identical devices to enable it to be driven as a four-channel VOA, a four-channel 2x2 optical switch, or a combination of two VOAs and two optical switches. It also is based on OpTun's CMI technology.
"We are excited to launch this product, which serves to deliver on the promise of PLC-based components for parallel and serial integration," stated Myo Ohn, vice president of marketing and business development at OpTun. "Planar waveguide technology also holds the promise to mass produce integrated optical components, leveraging the enormous investment and accumulated knowledge from the silicon VLSI."
