News

17 January 2007

 

NL adds silicon photonics capabilities and changes name to Innolume

InAs-GaAs quantum dot laser developer NL Nanosemiconductor GmbH has announced its new company name, Innolume, as well as additions to its management team to develop silicon photonics at its new headquarters in Santa Clara, CA, USA.

Innolume produces MBE-grown epitaxial wafers, broadband laser chips and fiber-coupled laser modules at its former headquarters in Dortmund, Germany. NL was spun-out of the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St Petersburg,
Russia in 2003 by professor Nikolai Ledentsov.

The addition of silicon photonics expertise, together with the November's acquisition of rival quantum dot technology developer Zia Laser Inc of Albuquerque, NM, USA (which spun off from the University of New Mexico's Center for High Technology Materials in 2001), will significantly augment
the firm's capability to meet the needs of the emerging optical interconnect market with innovative solutions for high-volume silicon chip manufactures, says CEO Jürgen Kurb. "To reflect these new capabilities, we have also
changed our name to Innolume," he adds.

Dr Larry West joins Innolume as chief technology officer Silicon Photonics to lead the technology development in Santa Clara. "We believe that silicon photonics technology is the optimal solution for optical interconnection between silicon chips as bandwidth requirements rapidly grow in the future," he says. "The time for market entry clearly depends on cost ­ this is driven by the cost of laser sources and their integration. Innolume, with its proprietary quantum dot laser technology, is uniquely positioned to deliver silicon photonic interconnect at the right price point."

Also joining the team are Dr Andreas Goebel as VP Photonics Integration and Dr Gregory Wojcik as VP Engineering.

Innolume will maintain development of quantum dot laser technology in Dortmund, Germany, with the current production of QD epitaxial wafers being augmented by the recent completion of full laser fabrication facilities,
including device processing and packaging.

"In addition to optical interconnect, we remain firmly committed to meeting the needs of current laser applications by offering a broad product portfolio leveraging the unique properties of quantum dot technology -
especially in the wavelength range between 1.1 and 1.3 microns, which is unattainable with conventional quantum well technology," says Dr Alexey Kovsh, CTO Laser Technology (former CEO of NL Nanosemiconductor).

Innolume says that its long-term development focus is to drive performance improvements of semiconductors by delivering photonics solutions for chip-level signal and timing distribution.

See related item:

NL Nanosemiconductor acquires Zia Laser

Visit: http://www.innolume.com