COLORADO SPRINGS,
Colo. — Continuum Photonics Inc., which has more than
five years' experience combining microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) filters with beam-forming piezoelectric
actuators, is packaging its optocomponent technology
into three series of system-level products called
DirectLight.
The first DirectLight family, DirectLight IG
(instrumentation grade), will be shown in test-equipment
configurations at the upcoming Optical Fibers in
Communications conference, in conjunction with partners
Agilent Technologies Inc. and Analog Devices Inc.
Later this year, Continuum (http://www.continuumphotonics.com/)
will use different configurations of subsystems to
target telecommunications manufacturing companies, as
well as specialists in fiber distribution, production
and storage. Designing a common platform for all three
markets puts Continuum into a market similar to that of
Glimmerglass Inc. and Calient Networks Inc.
Aaron Bent, vice president of marketing and business
development at Continuum (Billerica, Mass.), said that
the company had long recognized the common need for a
scaled optical switch in both prototype and research
testing, and in volume-manufacturing testing. Continuum
refers to the combined market as Optical Automation
Systems, and it sees a $450 million addressable market
for such equipment by 2008.
Continuum's core technology combines a MEMS motion
amplifier layer with a piezo element, resulting in an
optical-switching element completely based on free-space
optics, with no micromirrors. The switch elements are
much more resilient and stiffer than micromirrors. They
have typical insertion losses of less than 1.4 dB and a
first resonant frequency well in excess of 1 kHz.
The DirectLight IG test switches are available in
initial configurations of 16 ports, a one-rack-unit
system upgradeable to 32 ports; and a 64-port system,
standing two rack units high and configured as 16, 32,
48 or 64 ports. The systems have a built-in variable
optical attenuator and power meter. Current platforms
have serial and Ethernet interfaces, with a GPIB
hardware interface to be added later this year, as well
as an HTML software interface.
Bent said that typical optical switch systems devoted
to test applications, from manufacturers such as JDS
Uniphase and Dicom, are much larger and more expensive,
though he added that Continuum will face new challenges
from smaller platforms developed at Calient and
Glimmerglass.
