PII: S0961-1290(00)90593-3


Southampton Photonics start-up 
attracts USli55m in fundina 

Pictured: (from L-R) Professor David Payne (Chairman), Don Spalinger (Acting President) and Dr Peter 
Ballantyne (Senior VP, Operations and Engineering) of Southampton Photonics. 

A new start-up - 
Southampton Photonics 
(spun out of the Opto- 
electronics Research 
Centre at the University 
of Southampton) - has at- 
tracted first-round fund- 
ing of &37m (US$55m, a 
record for the UK) to de- 
sign and make fibre-optic 
telecoms components. 

The company intends 
to create 200 jobs over 
the next 18 months at a 
new 2250 m2 facility in 
the Chilworth Science 
Park in the UK and estab- 
lish design, production 
and sales facilities in 

California employing 250 
staff by end-2002. 

Initial products will 
be based on technology 
licensed from the 
University of 
Southampton, much of it 
developed and patented 
by the founders and em- 
ployees while working at 
the ORC, with which the 
company will have an 
on-going alliance. 

Founder and 
Chairman is Professor 
David Payne FRS, head of 
the ORC, leader of the 
team that invented the 
optical amplifier (en- 

abling DWDM) in 1986, 
and jointly awarded the 
Benjamin Franklin Medal 
for developing the er- 
bium-doped fibre amplti- 
er in 1998. 

Products will include: 
?? DFB fibre laser arrays 
for closely packed chan- 
nels for DWDM; 
?? optical filters with en- 
hanced performance al- 
lowing more channels 
per fibre; and 
. broadband optical 
amplifiers. 
Southampton Photonics 
Tel: +44 (0) 238059- 
2116 

Corning to invest US$270m 
Corning Inc is investing 
US$270m to increase ca- 
pacity of Corning 
Lasertron products six- 
fold over the next two 
years, involving construc- 
tion of a new factory and 
creation of about 1150 
jobs: 

* US$225m in expanding 
Corning Lasertron to in- 
crease capacity for am- 
plification and 
transmission products, 
including pump lasers, 
transmission lasers and 
receivers, enabling the 
broadening of manu- 

facturing from wafer 
fabrication through 
packaging; 
* Corning also invested 
US$45m to double ca- 
pacity at Corning 
Lasertron’s Oak Park fa- 
cility in Bedford, MA, 
USA. 

News Update 

JDSU and 
SDL in 
US$4lbn 
merger 
The largest fibre-optics 
component manufactur- 
er JDS Uniphase Corp 
(Nepean, Toronto, 
Canada and San Jose, CA, 
USA) has acquired num- 
ber 2 supplier and 
MOCVD-based high- 
power laser manufactur- 
er SDL Inc for about 
US$4lbn in stock. SDL 
has about 1,700 staff and 
JDSU over 17,000. SDL 
makes 980 nm chips but 
- unlike JDSrJ - also 
packages them into mod- 
ules. SDL will operate 
as a wholly-owned 
subsidiary. 

In the past year, a 
toi:al of 14 acquisitions 
have been undertaken 
eil:her by JDSU or by 
companies it later pur- 
chased. Including 
Epitaxx Inc, Sifam Ltd, 
O_ptical Coating 
Laboratory Inc, Cronos 
Integrated Microsystems 
InI:, and Fujian Casix 
Laser Inc (acquired be- 
tween November ‘99 
and May ZOOO), JDSU’s 
year-2000 sales were 
US$1.43bn (up 143% on 
‘99 for JDS FITEL Inc and 
Uniphase Corp com- 
bined). Including merg- 
er-related charges etc, 
ne;: loss was US$419m 
(US$905m for fiscal 
2000). 

The combined com- 
pany - JDSU, SDL and E- 
TEK Dynamics (acquired 
for US$lSbn in June) - 
has annual sales of about 
USS2.7bn. 
JDSi uniphase carp 
Tel: +1-408-4341800 

Ill-k Review ??Vol.13 No. 5 2000 
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