Corning to Open First High-Volume Manufacturing Facility for Optical Networking Devices

CORNING, N.Y., Jan. 24 -- Corning Inc. has announced that it will build a new optical networking devices manufacturing facility in Fountain Valley, Calif., near the company's Garden Grove research and development site. The expansion plans, first announced in August 2000, are part of an ongoing effort to meet market demand for two wavelength management products, based on liquid crystal technology.
The new facility will provide high-volume manufacturing capacity for the PurePath Dynamic Spectral Equalizer and Wavelength Selective Switch products, said Corning. These products enable high channel-count optical add/drop and per channel bandwidth management that increase the flexibility and extend the reach of long-haul and metro dense wavelength division multiplexing networks. In August, Corning announced it would invest more than $20 million to significantly increase its manufacturing capabilities for wavelength management products. The new manufacturing facility in Fountain Valley represents the second phase of the planned expansion.
The demand we projected for these products has materialized, said Doug Eccleston, business director for Corning's Wavelength Management Products group. We are working with multiple customers, and believe this expansion will be essential to meeting their requirements for PurePath products.