Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto

Observers, manufacturers and customers agree that expansion in the optical electrical components industry is all well and good, but automation is the key to relieving some of the pressure constraining the market.

“The real answer is going to be automation and we are just starting to see it,” says Jean Luc Archambault, director of passive components for Ciena. “We are still in the dark ages if you compare [optical electrical components] with where micro-electronics are today.”

There are many reasons why it is not as easy to incorporate automation in the optical components world as it was in the semi-conductor world. Two of the most formidable obstacles include the fact that in the fiber optics world, components makers are dealing with at least 14 different types of materials and the fact that these components are incredibly minute. Semi-conductors, on the other hand, are made of silicon and are not nearly as small.

“Because there are so many materials, you can't focus on just one like you can in the semi-conductor world,” says a JDSU spokesman. “Then the automation companies come in and realize that the sizes you are talking about are very small. Lasers are the size of a grain of salt and made up of 150 mono-atomic layers. To automate the manufacturing process, you have to move around a part that might be 1 mm square with a meter of fiber attached to it. And the fiber can't be bent because you might crack it.”

It is easier to automate the manufacturing process for active components because the underlying process in their manufacture is basically a semi-conductor process. There, at least you can throw money at the intensive packaging process in order to increase capacity, he says.

Passive components are much harder to make and are more labor-intensive. Until equipment can automate entire manufacturing lines, JDSU is working on “islands of automation.” The company is using automation techniques in the splicing and testing parts of the process, the spokesman says.

In fact, massive strides have already been made in optical electrical components manufacturing processes, says Conrad Burke, senior vice president of marketing for MEMS-based switching subsystems and components supplier OMM.

“The demand we have seen in the past would not have been met otherwise,” he notes.

Early last year, Corning and Samsung launched a joint venture project to automate the packaging of wave division multiplexers (WDMs) for thin film filter-based micro-optics. Samsung, a long-time partner of Corning's, developed the automation process. The joint venture is already shipping products made using semi-automated packaging, says Jean-Louis Malinge, vice president and general manager of Corning's optical components division.

Whereas semi-conductor component makers are able to buy automated manufacturing equipment off the shelf, much optical components manufacturing equipment simply does not yet exist. As a result, components makers have had to build equipment themselves until the market grows enough to get manufacturing equipment makers interested in serving the new market.

“Until a year ago, there was not enough volume to justify the needed investment in automation,” says Archambault. “Now that suppliers are making hundreds of thousands of components, automation is really making sense.”