WOBURN, Mass. -- Aegis Semiconductor, an emerging leader in dynamic optical components and systems, today announced a major expansion of its worldwide sales and distribution channels. Aegis has appointed Mike Sullivan, Director of Sales, as well as a network of distribution partners to market and sell the company's complete line of communications products.

Aegis has expanded its global sales force in response to telecommunications and cable carriers who are requiring network equipment that is much easier to install, maintain and reconfigure, but without the up-front capital expenditures traditionally associated with automation. The result has been an increase in design activity for low cost, self-adjusting modules by manufacturers of optical systems and sub-systems such as amplifiers, muxes, variable optical attenuators, and optical add/drop multiplexers. The benefit is an ability to cost-effectively integrate automatic system monitoring and adjustment to reduce set-up time, eliminate regular balancing by technicians, increase system robustness in face of long-term drifts, and make the system easily reconfigurable.

"Given the low cost, small size and product performance delivered by our Active Thin Films(TM) platform, the global marketplace has signaled a great interest in Aegis products," said Jim Witham, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Aegis Semiconductor. "Many developers of these low cost communications systems are located outside of the U.S., so our sales expansion is well-timed to significantly increase Aegis's capacity for customer engagements throughout the globe."

Mike Sullivan, who has joined Aegis as Director of Sales, has more than fifteen years of sales and marketing experience with optical component companies. Sullivan comes to Aegis from Coviant, an optoelectronics packaging company. He has also held senior sales positions with optical component manufacturers CyOptics and Lasertron. At Aegis, in addition to direct sales, Sullivan will be responsible for the new distribution partnerships in Europe, Japan, China, and Israel.

Aegis Semiconductor Inc.