Finisar Achieves Industry Milestone: 100 Million VCSELs Shipped and Counting
I am very excited to announce an industry milestone for Finisar: the shipment of our 100 millionth Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser, or VCSEL. Finisar’s VCSELs are semiconductor lasers used by some of the world’s largest companies to power high-speed fiber optic data communications. I can proudly state that we have been an industry leader in high-volume VCSEL technology since our first commercial introduction in 1996. Shipping 100 million VCSEL products clearly demonstrates the viability of this technology in many applications and is a testament to our continued focus on innovation and execution.
None of this has been possible without the support of our customers whom represent the industry’s leading storage and network system manufacturers, telecommunication carriers, and enterprises operating major data centers. In addition, in recent years, we have also started to see new applications for VCSELs outside of our core communications markets. We are now shipping VCSELs into consumer, medical, industrial and sensing applications. While these applications are currently low volume relative to our core communications markets, we believe over time the number of applications for VCSELs will likely grow and the size of some of these new markets can become significant for our VCSEL products.
Fifteen years ago, a small team in Texas started shipping their first VCSEL and the business has grown tremendously since then. Today, Finisar is recognized as the gold standard of VCSELs and has many patents on VCSEL design structure and processing techniques used to manufacture them. Our VCSEL fab in Allen, Texas is considered one of the most advanced VCSEL fabs in the world and has received high praise from many customers who have performed audits. Our VCSEL team has gone on to create the gold standard VCSEL for performance, reliability and delivery in the industry.
The growing demand for VCSELs has been fueled by several factors, including the success of Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel. Ultimately, we owe our success to our customers, who are working hard to champion the explosive growth in the data center and telecommunications market.
Milestones, VCSELs | Rafik Ward | 
10:33 am
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