San Jose, Calif., Jan. 26 -- Lightwave Microsystems, manufacturer and marketer of planar waveguide circuits and integrated optical components, has shipped out samples of an S-Band 40-channel arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) DWDM muxtiplexer/demultiplexer to a customer. "This product is just another result of our outstanding design and manufacturing capabilities," said Ferris Lipscomb, Lightwave Microsystems' vice president of marketing. "We believe that this is the world's first commercially available 40-Channel AWG in the S-band. S-band allows systems manufacturers to go to even higher channel counts. Our customers are enthusiastic about this new option." S-band is a new spectral region that is opening up to DWDM systems to increase channel count, much like the L-band was last year. S-band resides to the short wavelength side of the standard C-band, covering the region from about 1490 to 1530 nm. Lightwave Microsystems is offering 40-Channel AWG DWDM components in C, L, and S bands in volume production.