PITTSBURGH – II‐VI Incorporated (Nasdaq: IIVI), a global leader in optical components and modules for undersea networks, today announced that it has reached the commercial milestone of shipping more than 1,000 LightFlow™ Flexband wavelength selective switch (WSS) modules for deployment in undersea optical networks.

Cloud service providers are driving the demand for next-generation undersea networks with reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) embedded in branching points on the ocean floor. Undersea ROADMs leverage highly reliable WSS technology to cost-effectively manage the exploding growth of data traffic between datacenters on separate continents, by dynamically allocating bandwidth or rerouting communication. II-VI has now shipped more than 1,000 WSS modules for undersea applications since it received its first such commercial orders in 2019.

The ultrahigh reliability of II-VI's WSS was achieved with an athermal liquid-crystal technology, which is controlled by very simple circuits and consumes very low power. The LightFlow Flexband WSS is available in 1×1, 1×2, 1×4, 1×8, and 1×9 configurations. II-VI's broad portfolio of products for undersea networks includes pump lasers, filters, and detectors.

II-VI's expertise in both liquid-crystal and liquid-crystal-on-silicon technologies enables the company to provide the industry's widest range of WSS offerings, including the most reliable WSS for undersea, the most cost-effective low-port-count WSS for access networks, and the most compact high-port-count twin-WSS for next-generation core ROADM networks.

Read the full press release here.

II-VI