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WaveSplitter designs, develops and manufactures fiber optic couplers,
isolators, and DWDM components. The company sells these components, based upon proprietary
technologies, into a variety of applications, including CATV, local area networks (LANs),
optical fiber amplifiers, high speed short-haul and long-haul telecommunications, as well
as other fiber optic communications systems.
History
Founded in 1996, as Applied Fiber Optics (AFO) soon established itself as an innovator in
fiber optic component products. Thus far, the company has been privately financed with
seed money, an initial round of investment and initial venture funding. Initial product
development has been done primarily in California, with some research assistance from
abroad. At the OFC'99 show it was announced that AFO would change it's name to
WaveSplitter Technologies Incorporated.
The Market
Currently, demand outstrips supply for DWDM components, driven largely by the explosive
growth in Internet use as well as multimedia, corporate intranet, email, large file
transfers and telecommuting applications and, finally, the Telecommunications Reform Act
of 1996. The DWDM technologies available today are generally recognized as a
cost-effective way in which to increase bandwidth without incurring the costs associated
with installing additional fiber.
Four competing DWDM technologies are commercially available at this time: dichroic
thin-film filters, array waveguide filters, fiber Bragg grating filters and hybrid fused
cascaded fiber-Mach Zehnder couplers. Trade analysts report that the sales of
opto-electronic equipment reached $4.5 billion in 1996 and will grow to $34 billion by
2006; some sources project even greater growth levels specific to WDM spending at levels
of $4.5 billion by 2001.
WaveSplitter has targeted various applications worldwide with the goal of offering dense
multiplexing solutions easily scalable from 16 channels.
Core Technologies
WaveSplitter's patented proprietary hybrid fused cascaded fiber (FCF) technology provided
the catalyst for the company's formation. Unlike competing DWDM solutions which require
thin-film coatings or waveguides, the FCF technology fuses and "cascades" the
fiber into a series to control the signal. This unique all-fiber design results in high
return loss, high wavelength isolation, low insertion loss and excellent signal-to-noise
ratio. Additionally, integrating the DWDM function into the fiber itself serves to
maximize both device reliability and manufacturing yields. FCF technology is especially
well suited to the manufacture of application-specific dense wavelength division
multiplexers.
WaveSplitter's newest patent-pending WaveSplitter™ hybrid DWDM technology is more
accurately a modification and a new application of a technology already in existence.
Based upon an unbalanced Mach-Zehnder (M-Z) interferometer, the WaveSplitter™
technology features very low (less than 2 dB) overall insertion loss, very high (greater
than 30 dB) isolation and low thermal impact. For more detailed information, please refer
to WaveSplitter white paper entitled Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexer (DWDM)
Technology Review and Market Forecast With Analysis of the WaveSplitter DWDM Approach.
Finally, through the application of selective portions of the WaveSplitter hybrid
technology, combined with other DWDM technologies available today, devices can be created
which easily achieve 50 GHz (0.4 nm) channel separation levels, scalable to 16 channels
and more.
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