NSG Europe Announces Newly Developed SELMUX® Optical Platform Resulting from the Company's Original Opti-Sourcing™ Services

Temse, Belgiun (September, 2005)…NSG, creator of the SELFOC® Lens and the world’s leading supplier of Gradient Index Lenses, announces its all new SELMUX® Solutions Platform, a new optical technology that will revolutionize the optical components market. SELMUX is a patented technology that optimizes glass, epoxy and Filter-on-Lens (FOL) technologies to create integrated, Edge WDM couplers and components. This breakthrough advancement eliminates soldering so all SELMUX products are completely lead free and comply with EU directives on the Restriction of Hazardous Substances or RoHS.

As NSG continues its trend of applying expertise in material technology through its Original Opti-Sourcing services, the company has developed this platform for all products developed for the broadband industry. Initial testing shows this glass and epoxy only technology offers many benefits such as enhanced thermal properties, an epoxy free optical path and an environmentally hardy design that outperforms competing platforms.

The key material ingredient to NSG’s SELMUX Platform is their expertise using FOL technology. FOL coatings are deposited directly on the end face of the SELFOC GRIN lens to create a single integrated, monolithic device, rather than using separate filter substrates. This technique eases alignment, improves reliability and reduces cost by simplifying the manufacturing process. In addition, the integrated FOL process enables a flexible architecture to achieve high isolation and low insertion loss designs which is ideal for broadband applications.

Shihichiro Yokoyama, Managing Director for NSG Europe, states “as part of NSG’s strategy to do more for our customers through Original Opti-Sourcing, we have listened to our customers’ requests and created a new robust technology that is low in cost, has excellent optical properties and is environmentally friendly.”

Edwin Brouwer, Director of Advanced Material Applications added “by utilizing NSG’s SELMUX platform we are able to meet the complex demands of the European broadband industry on the materials level and deliver value added products to our customers. We anticipate that this technology will really take off, so we are currently is ramping-up our global facilities for volume production. This will assure both high quality and competitive pricing.”