No revival for photonics casualties - Business & Finance

Electronic News, July 29, 2002 by David Manners

It will be too expensive for companies that have closed their photonics operations to get back into the sector when the upturn comes, according to one of the United Kingdom's leading optoelectronics experts.

Recently in the United Kingdom, Bookham Technology closed two optoelectronics factories and opto foundry Optical Micro Devices of Swindon, England, is in administration.

"From all of us that have started up within the last two years only a very small handful will survive," said Greg Parker, founder of optoelectronics startup Mesophotonics and a professor of photonics at Southampton University. "We're very lucky; we're not manufacturing yet. Mesophotonics' technology is looking at the market requirement in two to three years from now. With a bit of luck, when the market is once again ready for us, we'll be ready for it," he added.

Supply chain analyst firm iSupli indicates optical component demand will grow 25 percent per year from 2003 to 2006. And the result of the closures of operations by the big companies is that the supply is not going to be there.

"Some of the big boys have let their technical people go," Parker said. "Whole sections of manufacture have simply been closed down and the manufacturing equipment auctioned off. For those companies I don't see any way back into those particular areas of manufacture -- it simply costs too much to start from scratch again."

"Lucent disbanded its optical segments--it's almost out of the optical business right now," said Steve Rago, principal analyst at iSuppli.

"The big boys have closed down a lot of their activity and laid off very good staff," Parker said. "This is excellent news for startups like mine which can now take on highly trained staff.".

David Manners is an editor for Electronics Weekly, a sister publication of Electronic News.