OXFORDSHIRE, U.K., Sept. 11, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Monday, September 9, 2002: the first day of ECOC 2002, Bookham Technology plc (LSE:BHM) (Nasdaq:BKHM) and Cierra Photonics, two leading innovators in integrated optical components and subsystems for fiber-optic communication networks, announced they 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. Bookham Technology is contributing its well-established ASOC design and manufacturing technology for fabricating integrated optical circuits on a silicon substrate, together with its leading range of integrated GaAs and InP tunable lasers and modulators. Cierra Photonics brings to the partnership its outstanding range of thin-film filters, based on the company's Advanced Energetic Deposition (AED) technology, a unique process for waferscale integration that results in lower costs, high yields and industry-leading 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 highperformance terra-Q and solla-Q families.
Cierra's terra-Q family supports narrowband channel spacings at 100GHz, 50GHz and 25GHz, with broad and flat passbands. It also has a low temperature coefficient in its transmission mode, making the devices relatively insensitive to changes in the laser spectrum or to the system's temperature. Other key features are ITU and custom wavelengths, low-loss passband, accurate wavelength centering, high channel rejection and deep reflection stopband.
The solla-Q family comprises a variety of broad-passband filters that pass groups of multiple adjacent channels through the filter. These three-port devices form the basic building blocks for DWDM optical systems designed with a banded architecture. Key features include steep rejection skirts to minimise the number of skipped channels, low Insertion loss, and flat passband.
These products will complement Bookham's established product lines based on the ASOC technology. ASOC is the premier platform for the integration of complex optical functions onto a single, compact optical chip. Bookham has developed and manufactured products with multiple optical functions on a chip such as Bookham's established integrated multiplexer and variable optical attenuator (MuxVOA) modules, and three-function monolithic optical channel monitor with switched input.
Bookham's EVOA solution remains one of the most versatile, high performance components in its class. Because it uses active electrical charge injection into a silicon substrate to achieve attenuation, it switches at rates orders of magnitude larger than competing solutions. Its high extinction ratio also allows its use as an effective 1x1 switch in many applications. The partnership sees the integration of Bookham's ASOC EVOA and of Cierra's solla-Q as a unique and highly valuable combination for multiple applications including many OADM applications.
"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. 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," said Steve Turley, Chief Commercial Officer for Bookham Technology.
"The Bookham marketing partnership is an important milestone in Cierra's history," said Glenn Yamamoto; Cierra Photonics' CEO. "Not only can we more effectively serve our European customers with TFF based components, but customers will benefit from having access to a broad set of world class active & passive network component solutions delivered by our partner."
The partnership gives customers the flexibility of standard or customised integrated optical filters implemented either by Bookham Technology's ASOCbased arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) technology or by Cierra Photonics' AED thin-film technology, according to specific requirements. Bookham's ASOC AWGs are ideally suited for high channel count applications as well as multi-function product applications; additionally, special discrete functions can be added by hybridisation. Cierra's AED's wafer-scale integration of fiber-optic components yields a range of products with leading performance in terms of insertion loss and channel separation.
"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," said Turley. "This is a major strength for the partnership, and we are naturally delighted to be working with Cierra. They are a very brilliant startup with a unique capability in thinfilm optical integration."
Bookham Technology (LSE:BHM) (Nasdaq:BKHM) designs, manufactures and markets integrated multifunctional active and passive optical components using high volume production methods. With three disruptive semiconductor technologies that offer intrinsic cost reduction: patented siliconbased ASOC, Gallium Arsenide and Indium Phosphide, the company provides endtoend networking solutions that offer higher performance and greater systems capability to communications network system providers.
The company, whose securities are traded on NASDAQ and the London Stock Exchange, is headquartered in the U.K., with offices and manufacturing facilities in Abingdon and Caswell, in the U.K., and has additional offices in U.S., France, Italy, Japan and China. The company employs approximately 750 people worldwide.
More information on Bookham Technology is available at www.bookham.com
Bookham and ASOC are registered trademarks of Bookham Technology plc
Cierra Photonics, headquartered in Santa Rosa, Calif., designs and manufactures wavelength discrimination components for the fiber optic telecommunications industry. Cierra is developing a series of optical components derived from wafer-scale integration, relying initially on its newly developed Advanced Energetic Deposition (AED) process. Cierra was founded in February 2000 by former Optical Coating Laboratory Inc. executives Glenn Yamamoto and Mike Scobey.
For more information, visit the company website at www.cierraphotonics.com