Businessweek

Finisar Corporation provides optical subsystems and components that are used in data communication and telecommunication applications. The company’s optical subsystems consist primarily of transmitters, receivers, transceivers, transponders and active optical cables that provide the fundamental optical-electrical, or optoelectronic, interface for interconnecting the electronic equipment used in building these networks, including the switches, routers and servers used in wireline networks, as well as the antennas and base stations for wireless networks. These products rely on the use of semiconductor lasers and photodetectors in conjunction with integrated circuits (ICs) and novel optoelectronic packaging to provide a means for transmitting and receiving digital signals over fiber optic cable at speeds ranging from less than 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) to more than 100 Gbps, over distances of less than 10 meters to more than 2,000 kilometers, using a range of network protocols and physical configurations. The company also provides products known as wavelength selective switches (WSS). In long-haul and metro networks, each fiber may carry 50 to 100 different high-speed optical channels, each with its own specific optical wavelength. WSS products are sometimes combined with other components and sold as linecards that plug into a system chassis referred to as a reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM). The company’s line of optical components consists primarily of packaged lasers and photodetectors for data communication and telecommunication applications and passive optical components used in telecommunication applications. Products The company’s family of optical subsystem products consists of transmitters, receivers, transceivers, transponders and active optical cables principally based on the Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Optical Transport Network, or OTN, and Synchronous Optical Networking/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy, or SONET/SDH protocols. A transmitter uses a laser plus direct or indirect modulation to convert electrical signals into optical signals for transmission over fiber optics. Receivers incorporating photo detectors convert incoming optical signals into electrical signals. A transceiver combines both transmitter and receiver functions in a single device. A transponder includes an IC to provide the data serializer-deserializer function that would otherwise reside in the customer’s equipment if a transceiver is used. An active optical cable combines two transceivers and a fiber optic cable that are built into an integrated, connectorized cable assembly that is sold in various cable lengths. The company’s optical subsystem products perform these functions with data integrity and support a range of protocols, transmission speeds, fiber types, wavelengths, transmission distances, physical configurations and software enhancements. For data communication applications that rely on the Fibre Channel standard, the company provides a range of optical subsystems for transmission applications at 1 to 16 Gbps. For data communication applications that rely on the Ethernet standard, the company provides a range of optical subsystems for transmitting signals at 1 to 100 Gbps using the SFP, SFP+, XFP, X2, QSFP and CFP form factors. For OTN and SONET/SDH-based telecommunication applications, the company supplies optical subsystems that are capable of transmitting at 0.155, 0.622, 2.5, 10, 40 and 100 Gbps. The company also offers a line of optical subsystems for telecommunication applications using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technologies. The company’s products include coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) transceivers in the SFP form factor and dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transceivers in the SFP, SFP+ XFP, CFP and 300-pin form factors. These products include both fixed wavelength transceivers and tunable transceivers that are capable of dynamically tuning across a range of wavelengths in the C- and L-Bands. The company manufactures active and passive optical components, including vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), Fabry-Perot (FP) lase