A bright idea by three former employees of GEC-Marconi Ltd is enabling their company, Integrated Optical Components Ltd to float on London’s Alternative Investment Market in early March with a placing and a public offering. IOC’s Lithium Niobate-based chip is an amplitude modulator that causes phase changes in an optical wave guide so that instead of switching a telecommunications source laser on and off thousands of times a second, the laser remains on all the time and the change of phase acts like a shutter. The benefit? The company believes that it should enable a signal to go for 250 miles without a boost, rather than just 35 miles at present. The phase change can be accomplished faster than the laser could be switched, improving the quality and speed of signals sent down fiber optic cables, thereby reducing the need for repeaters says the company. Previous efforts in this area have involved a mechanical process that tilted mirrors. IOC’s technique is completely opto- electronic, and thus faster. The opto-electronic components are produced on a high-temperature process at the company’s headquarters that diffuses titanium onto wafers. Production director Jake Dodson said IOC would be the first to put the technology into volume production, and the company believes it has an edge on potential competition with its knowledge of the complicated process. The current products are aimed at the low- frequency market, but the OC192 digital modulator to be launched in the US next month is aimed at the high frequency market. Turnover to September 30 was about #1.6m and profits just less than #100,000. Turnover is expected to double and more this year. The flotation is expected to raise about #5m after expenses and value the company at around #20m. Most of the shares will be placed with insitutions, but there will be some made available to the public, said Dodson. The broker to the company is Henry Cooke Lumsden Plc.
