Photonics Briefing #5:
Automation in Photonics

January 31, 2001
Burlington Marriott, Burlington, MA

The fiber optics and optical network industry is going through a period of extraordinary growth that is expected to continue into the future. This has caught optical component suppliers by surprise and demand now exceeds supply. For example, optical fiber production is sold out until 2002 and most optical components are in the same situation.

In order to increase the supply, new manufacturing capacity has to be brought on-line or existing processes need to be automated, or both. Unfortunately, the optical component industry is in the same position as the electronic component business 30-40 years ago, when discrete components were placed on circuit boards by hand. Since then the process has been highly automated with very large scale integrated chips placed on boards by robots with very little human intervention except for test and measurement.

Optical components have the same but one additional critical problem in that they often have to be aligned optically. The problem of automation in the optical communications industry are just now being addressed. It will take a large investment and it will not be solved overnight.Several new start-ups have already entered the market to take advantage of this new opportunity. The existing players like Lucent Technologies, Nortel, JDS Uniphase, and Alcatel are spending millions to automate their component production processes.

The “Automation in Photonics Briefing” will address the problems as seen by major systems and components suppliers, present some of the solutions proposed by existing and new automation companies, and highlight new opportunities in the photonics automation field.

Who should be interested:
Executives from the following companies