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| September 30, 1998 |
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| LAUNCHING THE BUSINESS OF 980nm SEMICONDUCTOR LASER (LD) PUMP MODULE FOR LIGHT AMPLIFIERS IN NEXT GENERATION, LARGE CAPACITY, OPTICAL SUBMARINE CABLES |
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| Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation |
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Under the technological cooperation from KDD Laboratory, Inc. (Representative
Director and General Manager Takuro Muratani, headquartered in Kami-Fukuoka City,
Saitama Prefecture), Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. (President Akira Miura, headquartered
in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) has been engaged in the development of a highly reliable
980 nm-LD pump module to be used as a light amplifier in next generation, large
capacity, optical submarine cables, which has now resulted in the successful development
of a high performance module which may be practically used in the submarine system
with extremely high reliability, and Mitsubishi Chemical has decided for its commercialization.
Submarine repeaters utilizing this module shall be adopted in optical submarine
cable lines crossing the Pacific Ocean between Japan and USA, "Japan-US Cable"
and "PC-1 (Pacific Crossing-1) Cable" as well as optical submarine cable lines
crossing the Atlantic Ocean between USA and Europe, "TAT-14 Cable", of which KDD
Submarine Cable Systems, Inc. (KDD-SCS) and others have received orders for the
installation.
In the field of large capacity, long distance submarine cables, KDD-SCS has been
playing a pioneering role in the world, and all the present projects of "Japan-US
Cable", "PC-1 Cable" and "TAT-14 Cable" concern optical marine cable lines which
are expected to start the operations by the year 2000, and the optical wavelength
multiplex submarine cable system (OSW-160G), a latest development by the KKD group,
shall be adopted to realize an ultra large capacity transmission system which
may be expanded to 640 G bits/second (which will be equivalent to about 7.7 million
telephone circuits).
Since the optical submarine cable system was introduced about 10 years ago, its
capability for high quality digital transmission has rapidly lead to efforts for
construction of global networks, and the progress for larger capacity systems
is remarkable. Also, due to the significantly increasing demand for internet and
other data transmissions, the installation of optical submarine cable lines with
further larger capacity is in progress. Because signal light diminishes in the
optical fiber which is the transmission medium of the optical submarine cable
line, repeaters provided with a light amplifier are installed at every several
10 kilometers for signal amplification. In known optical submarine cables, an
LD with the wave length of 1480nm has been used as the pump light source for light
amplification, but because the noise trouble is unavoidable with this known LD
as the cable line becomes over a longer distance and with a larger capacity, and
therefore, the commercialization of an LD with the wave length of 980 nm has been
desired which would result in reduced noises. The newly developed 980 nm-LD pump
module can meet the submarine system requirement for high reliability over a long
period of time, which has been long regarded impossible to meet, and thus it greatly
contributes to the realization of large capacity data transmission over a long
distance.
Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. has been engaged in the technological development and
business of GaAs-based substrates, epitaxial wafer prepared therefrom and used
for LED, and LD used for reading and writing data on optical disks. The novel,
highly reliable 980 nm-LD has been successfully developed by the effective utilization
of Mitsubishi Chemical's accumulated technologies including the manufacturing
technology for new, high quality GaAs substrates called the VGF process, the technology
for crystal growth of high quality AlGaAs nourished from the experiences with
low wavelength LD, the device process technology for securing high reliability,
the technology for mass production of LD, in combination with the technological
guidance from KDD Laboratory, Inc. Currently, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. is manufacturing
LD-related products in the Tsukuba Works (Ibaragi Prefecture), and the newly developed
980 nm-LD pump module shall be also manufactured in the same location. Along the
corporate program to expand the optical communication business which is expectably
to find increasing markets in future, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. is engaged in
the related R&D, and the 980 nm-LD pump module with an enhanced output rate
will be also announced in near future.
A detail of the present development shall be reported to the 16th IEE International
Semiconductor Laser Conference to be held in Nara City from October 4 to 9, 1998.
| For further information, please contact |
| Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation |
| Optoellectronics Department |
| Tel: [+81] 3-3283-4536 |
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