JDSU cuts 5000 jobs
JDS Uniphase (JDSU; Ottawa, Ont., Canada) announced a realignment program to create global centers for product development and to eliminate overlapping development programs. Several products from multiple manufacturing sites will be consolidated into specific locations around the world. The company also will close several operations, vacate 25 buildings, and lay off-approximately 5000 people or 20% of its current staff. Realignment, which is expected to cost between $375 million and $425 million, should reduce annual expense levels by more than $250 million. This will consolidate development and manufacturing, and transfer additional products to cost- and tax-efficient China. JDSU has cut its fourth-quarter sales estimates to $700 million.
Corning realigns business
Corning Incorporated (Corning, NY) announced a 25% reduction in its earnings forecast for 2001. "In response to this softer outlook, we are moving aggressively to lower inventory levels for the remainder of the year, and we are reducing our workforce," said John Loose, president and CEO. Around 1000 jobs are to be pruned in the company's photonic technologies business, making total job reductions in the division 2500 so far this year, while total layoffs across all businesses are approaching 4300.
Intel buys up photonics companies
Processing-chip maker Intel (Santa Clara, CA) will acquire three companies in a bid to extend its share of the optoelectronics market. Cognet Inc. (Los Angeles, CA) and nSerial Corp. (Santa Clara, CA), two of the acquisitions, develop high-speed electronic components for 10-Gigabit Ethernet optical modules. Both companies are developing chipsets using a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) manufacturing process that helps reduce costs and power consumption. The third company, LightLogic (Newark, CA), provides integrated, high-speed optical transponders for the metropolitan market segment.
Tunable Photonics raises $7 million
Tunable Photonics Corp. (Altadena, CA) closed a round of financing with a total of $7 million in venture capital to fund the development of a wavelength locker for tunable lasers. The company, a spinoff of SpectraSensors (also of Altadena, CA), produces components for fiberoptic communications, including a wavelength locker and wavelength mapper. The wavelength locker uses a proprietary tunable etalon to lock a tunable laser to any communications-channel wavelength under software control. The wavelength mapper is used to characterize widely tunable lasers during their manufacturing. "We provide very-high-speed channel switching and a tiny, low-cost product that can fit into a laser package," said Carl Kukkonen, CEO of Tunable Photonics.
France Telecom tests Light Management switch
Light Management Group (LMG; Norcross, GA), a developer of applications in optical and light technologies, has signed a letter of intent with France Telecom to test LMG's acousto-optic switch. The acousto-optic switch operates at a speed of less than 5 µs, representing a thousandfold advantage over today's microelectromechanical-systems technology, said a representative of the company. LMG's switch, which can transform optical signals from one input channel to more than 1000 output channels, contains no moving parts and has performed more than 1 trillion cycles free of maintenance.
Also in the news. . .
Cidra Corp. (Wallingford, CT), manufacturer of module and subsystem products for dynamic routing, monitoring, and conditioning of optical signals, has announced its application to the Securities and Exchange Commission to withdraw a registration statement for an initial public offering, citing unfavorable market conditions. . . . Tellium (Oceanport, NJ), a provider of intelligent optical switches, announced the opening of its intelligent optical-mesh-networking technical-training facility for customers, their contractors, and employees adjacent to the advanced optics labs in Tellium's new West Long Branch, NJ, facility. . . . Lightwave Microsystems (San Jose, CA), which produces devices for long-haul, metro, access and other optical-communications systems, has expanded its worldwide presence and established several business offices in Europe, the United States, Canada and the Pacific region of Asia.
John Grady