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12 January 2007
Industry Newsmakers - Winter 2007
Industry Newsmakers
Winter 2007
The following is a corporate news roundup from the Optical Society of America (OSA). This quarterly gathering of industry news is a complimentary service offered by the OSA PR team.
For more information on these or other OSA corporate members making news, please contact Lyndsay Meyer at lmeyer@osa.org or 202.416.1435.
Winter 2007 Industry News Summary
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OSA Corporate Members Making News BinOptics – BinOptics to Expand its Laser Product Line and Accelerate Blue Laser Development Effort Following Series C Funding Coherent, Inc. – Coherent, Inc. Signs Licensing Agreement with OSRAM GmbH on Laser Based Displays for Consumer Applications FPCE – $4.5 Million for Laser Technology Initiative IPG Photonics – IPG Photonics Corporation Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering JDSU – JDSU to Acquire Casabyte; Expands Service Assurance Capabilities Opnext, Fiberxon and JDSU – QSFP Specification Completes Public Review and Increases Speed to 10 Gb/s: The Industry’s Highest Density Pluggable Optical Module Thorlabs – Thorlabs, Inc. Purchases OFR, Supplier of Critical Optical Components
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The new year will bring new collaborations, business deals and acquisitions for many OSA member companies. Opnext, Fiberxon and JDSU are part of a 21-company group that teamed up to release a Quad (4-channel) Small Form-factor Pluggable (QSFP) optical module specification. The industry’s highest density pluggable optical module has four channels running at 10 Gb/s each, offering a practical solution for 40 Gb/s applications. Thorlabs has acquired critical optical components-supplier OFR, Inc. OFR becomes Thorlabs’ 7th business entity and will supply a range of products including optical isolators and circulators; high performance objective lenses for laser machining and marking; and a novel set of optomechanical building blocks in the form of their “Fiber Bench” series. Also on the acquisition front, JDSU announced plans to acquire Casabyte, Inc., a provider of service quality monitoring products for mobile network operators. The purchase comes at time when industry researchers predict a 12 to 14 percent increase over the next five years in the mobile probe test system market. Coherent, Inc. signed a license agreement with OSRAM GmbH that will allow OSRAM to develop RGB lasers using Coherent’s intellectual property. The lasers will be used in projection displays and other consumer applications. IPG Photonics went public in mid-December, with an IPO of 9 million shares at $16.50 per share. IPG projects it will receive $93 million in net proceeds as a result of the IPO.
In other industry news, BinOptics received necessary funding to expand its telecom and datacom laser applications as well as further the development of its etched-facet lasers used in optical storage. The Florida Photonics Center of Excellence (FPCE) at the University of Central Florida is another organization to receive funding for laser technology and programming. FPCE was awarded $4.5 million by the state of Florida through the Centers of Excellence program for the Laser Technology Initiative, a new program designed to advance laser technologies to help maintain and grow the state’s laser-enabled economy.
