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HSINCHU, TAIWAN and MONTEREY PARK, CA, October 4, 2001 - LightCross, Inc., a leading integrated optical networking components company, and United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC), a world-leading semiconductor foundry, today announced that they have successfully produced working Arrayed Waveguide Gratings (AWGs) devices on UMC silicon. This event marks the first time that integrated optical devices have been produced at a leading integrated circuit foundry.
Through the bridging fabrication technology developed at Lightcross, the traditionally labor-intensive process of handcrafting discrete photonic components is no longer required. Now, for the first time, photonic components can be manufactured in silicon, in an integrated manner, by leveraging UMC's fabs. Beyond significantly reducing development cycles, this revolutionary photonic component manufacturing development also provides the lowest-cost approach for fabricating photonic integrated circuits. It is believed that these low-cost and high-performance devices will significantly contribute toward helping optical communication systems move quickly from the network backbone to the metro and local access networks.
"I am very proud that we have been able to achieve this critical business and technical milestone," said Robert L. Barron, newly appointed chief executive officer and president of LightCross. "From a technology perspective, we are the first in our industry to demonstrate the ability to produce photonic components in a 'true' IC production environment. From a business perspective, we have taken a very important step in becoming the first Fabless OIC (optical integrated circuit) company. With these accomplishments, we can free ourselves from the anchor of assets that has dragged down both public and startup companies in the traditional optical components industry. We are thrilled to partner with this global leader and look forward to building on our accomplishments to achieve our objective of becoming the premier Fabless OIC company in the world."
"Combining LightCross' cutting edge photonics design expertise with UMC's ability to achieve high-yield and volume chip manufacturing at low costs will revolutionize the optical components industry," said John Hsuan, vice-chairman of UMC. "Our partnership with LightCross represents a bold effort to leverage existing IC infrastructure and assets to make cutting-edge telecommunications products."
"It is well-known that photonic integration is the future of optical communications; however, producing large volumes at low cost remains a challenge," added Dr. Chi Wu, founder and CTO of LightCross. "In proving the feasibility of our fabless photonic component manufacturing model, we will revolutionize photonic component manufacturing and provide the lowest-cost approach to fabricating photonic integrated circuits. This will have a huge impact in moving optical communication systems from the network backbone to the metro and local access networks. We have been extremely impressed by UMC's visionary management team and its highly talented, hard working and collaborative engineering team."
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