Thales spins off optoelectronics firm

17 Jun 2002

French electronics company Thales announces plans to spin off a company to market optical interconnects.

Thales Research and Technology, a division of French electronics giant Thales, plans to spin off a company to develop parallel optical interconnect modules for high-speed short-distance data communications.

The unnamed company will launch its first products - transmitter and receiver modules operating at up to 2.5 Gbit/s per channel - in April. Full-scale production is planned for the first quarter of 2003.

Called D-Light, the modules are based on 850 nm VCSELs and PIN photodiodes and are suitable for board-to-board and intra-cabinet communications.

Mathias Pez, optical interconnects lab manager at Thales Research and Technology, told Optics.org: "We do not intend to compete with the larger suppliers of optical interconnect solutions such as Agilent, Infineon, Zarlink and others. As well as making standard products, our company will target more specific markets such as in the defense, aeronautics and medical industries."

The spin off will initially employ five people but the number of employees is expected to increase rapidly. Thales will invest in the new company but the firm is also looking for funding from other sources.

"Intense discussions on this subject are currently on-going. Thales is willing to participate in the company but will certainly not fund the whole of it since this market is not part of its core business area," said Pez. "Several French and European industrial partners are interested in investing in the new company."

Thales' core business areas are defense systems, aeronautics equipment and information technology and services. Pez said: "Thales is now becoming a system integrator rather than a component developer. Optical interconnects are definitely required in many of Thales' products such as in signal processing systems, large radars systems or in multi-sensors applications. It is therefore very likely that Thales will become one of the spin-off's major clients."

Author
Nadya Anscombe is editor of Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.