WILMINGTON, Del. -- DuPontPhotonics Technologies, LLC, a provider of practical integrated optical components and awholly owned subsidiary of DuPont, introduces its iOXCÆË 888 optical component that allowsfor hitless and strictly non-blocking 8x8 switching, power monitoring and automatic channelbalancing. The cost-effective iOXCÆË 888 is ideal for use in intelligent optical cross-connects(OXC), reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADM) and other agile opticalnetworking elements.

Based on DuPont¡¦s proven library of optical building blocks, the iOXC 888integrates an 8x8 optical switch with eight power taps and eight variable optical attenuators(VOA) at output ports on a single chip with planar lightwave circuit (PLC). The chip ishermetically packaged to provide excellent reliability. The iOXCÆË 888 operates across C and Lbands with low insertion loss, low polarization dependent loss (PDL), low temperaturedependent loss (TDL), low wavelength dependent loss (WDL), and low power consumption.Moreover, our practical integration significantly reduces the iOXCÆË 888¡¦s size as well as cost.

¡§By integrating taps and VOA¡¦s with an 8x8 switch on a single chip, we are ableto offer our customers dramatic savings in both component cost and space,¡¨ said Chuck Xu, vicepresident of marketing and business development at DuPont Photonics. ¡§The integrated iOXCÆË888 also significantly reduces our customer¡¦s costs associated with assembly of bulky discretecomponents and complex fiber management.¡¨ DuPont is currently shipping repeat orders inengineering volumes. Live demonstrations of the product will be conducted in our booth(#1211) at OFC 2004 in February 2004 in Los Angeles, Calif.

DuPont Photonics Technologies LLC