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September 8th, 2005
Kotura, Inc, a company that designs, manufacturers and markets silicon photonic devices, has
secured $13 million in a Series 2 round of preferred stock financing. The financing was led by a new investor, GF Private
Equity Group. The Viterbi Group, ComVentures and ARCH Venture Partners contributed to the round.
Kotura, which has an in-house CMOS wafer fabrication facility, offers CMOS optical components
that offer current controlled optical attenuation. The devices are used to provide near real-time power management in optical
networks.
August 19th, 2005
Through General Electric Company’s research organization,
GE Global Research, General Electric has reported on the development of an ideal carbon nanotube diode. The new diode, reported
to be 1000 times smaller than the wavelength of light, is said to operate at the “theoretical limit”, which
corresponds to a near perfect electronic switch, an essential component for the design of future generations of ultra small
integrated circuits.
Technology related to the nanotube diode may also be the precursor
to a breakthrough in solar energy technology. According to the company, the GE Team observed a photovoltaic effect in
the nanotube-based diode. That effect is expected to be taken seriously by GE, which through its Ecomagination program has
an increasingly vested interest in solar and wind based renewable technologies. Besides the prospect of generating electricity,
the diode could help save power in electronic systems. The ideal nanodiode illustrated significant power efficiencies,
which could be attributed to its ideal nature (such as zero on resistance and infinite off resistance).
Margaret Blohm, GE's advanced technology leader for nanotechnology
elaborated on the perfect diode, "GE's success in developing the 'perfect' carbon nanotube device has not only ushered in
a new era in electronics, it has potentially opened new doors in solar energy research. The discovery of a photovoltaic effect
in our nanotube device could lead to exciting breakthroughs in solar cells that make them more efficient and a more viable
alternative in the mainstream energy market.
Besides the diode function, GE also noted that the new device has
the ability to function as two different types of transistors, enabling the new device to potentially detect and emit
light.
August 19th, 2005
Picolight, Inc., a photonics company, has completed the second
close of a $27.5 million round of funding. The second $14.5 million close consisted of an investment of $7 million from
Investor Growth Capital and $7.5 million debt financing from ORIX Venture Capital LLC. BA Venture Partners, Vesbridge Partners
and Coral Capital Management invested $13 million in the first close.
Picolight plans to use the funding to scale its manufacturing process
to meet customer demand, expand its line of 1310 nanometer VCSEL products from 4 Gigabit fibre channel to 10 Gigabit.
Commenting on the company’s finances and its end market was
Picolight’s CEO, Steve Hane, "The completion of this funding round combined with our increased sales performance positions
us to invest in new technologies to meet the needs of our growing customer base and establishes us as a market leader for
high-performing enterprise, storage area and metro network interconnect technology. This funding round will take us well past
our financial break-even goal as we continue to strongly support our customers with the best products to help move their business
forward." Picolight indicated that its revenues and bookings for the past 12 months doubled year-over-year.
August 19th, 2005
Alfalight, Inc. has added $7 million in funding from investors that
included GF Private Equity Group, LLC, the lead investor as well as previous investors: ARCH Venture Partners, Advanced Technology
Ventures, EDF Ventures, CenterPoint Ventures, Venture Investors, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and Advantage Capital
Partners.
The funding is planned for the expansion of the company’s
high power diode laser product family used in the industrial and telecommunications market.
August 17th, 2005
Luxtera Carries Light for the Optical Age – Schedules Integrated CMOS Photonic Chips for 2006, 10 Gbps to 1 Tbps Silicon Systems Possible
Luxtera Inc., a fabless semiconductor company, has announced what it calls the first 10 Gbit CMOS Optical Ring Modulator.
The company with the announcement indicated that it can now integrate optical modulators into standard CMOS production processes
in volume for the mass market.
Alex Dickinson, CEO of Luxtera, addressed today’s system designers in a statement accompanying the announcement.
He indicated that system designers who forsake optical interconnect for copper interconnects face the prospect of losing out
to the competition, "This development of the world's first ring modulator in CMOS is a fantastic milestone for Luxtera and
for our partners. We have reached a point that was considered impossible -- where optical interfaces can be faster and much
smaller than their electrical counterparts while preserving the economy of silicon. At speeds of 10Gbit/s or higher, system
designers must now focus on optical interconnect or risk falling behind the competition by limiting their interconnect choice
to copper." The process Luxtera used to build its photonic chips is the same CMOS process Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE:FSL,
FSLB), Luxtera’s partner, uses for its PowerPC based microprocessors.
Ashok Krishnamoorthy, distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems, a major producer of servers with its own chip design
unit, also commented on Luxtera’s technology, "The ability to link components with huge bandwidth and low latency has
always been a grand challenge for computer designers," says "With Luxtera's CMOS Photonics technology, we are now starting
to envision performance levels that were unimaginable a couple of years ago. There are some exciting possibilities for future
systems design."
Luxtera says its will ship product in 2006, but will announce product details in 2005. However the company did report
that its transceivers can operate at distances of 2 kilometers and with DWDM techniques the modulator would allow devices
to be built that can scale to 100 Gbps and 1 Terabit. The ring modulator also has an area of 30 microns, which the company
says is 1000 times smaller that a previous front-running CMOS 10 Gbps / MZI modulator. The company indicates that the small
size will result in an electrical interface that is 100 times smaller than what is now available. Added advantages though
are significantly less power consumption with no loss in bandwidth.
August 15th, 2005
Alphion Corporation has received an additional $1.5 million to complete
its third funding round, valued at $12.1 million. The third round’s lead investor was Tallwood Venture Capital. Others
involved in the round included Axiom Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs, ICCP Venture Partners, Narra Venture Capital, and industry
executives. The funding, according to the company, will be used to add manufacturing capacity and expand sales and marketing.
So far to date, Alphion has obtained total financing of $44.1
million to initiate and expand its efforts in the development of integrated components for photonic applications such as metro,
long haul and CATV networks. The company has since developed a line of integrated InP (Indium Phosphide) components and
associated advanced packaging technologies The company introduced its QLight 3R Photonic Transponder at the OFC 2004 Exhibition
and later in 2005, introduced its QLight Amp and Switch products at the OFC 2005 Exhibition. That product line, according
to Alphion, has been designed for use in photonic routing networks, photonic routing networks, network restoration and equipment
protection switching applications.
Alphion currently owns rights to over 35 issued and pending patents
related to design, manufacturing and application of photonic integrated circuits.
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