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Newport Opticom Plugging Away, Looking for Funds; Elcon Files Patent Suit vs. Conexant
TECHNOLOGY
Quiet in coming; quiet in going.
Earlier this year, Lake Forest-based VSK Photonics Inc. was bought by Azusa-based Archcom Technology Inc., which designs and manufactures high-performance lasers and photodiodes for the aerospace, data storage, military and telecommunications industries. Photodiodes often are used to measure light signals in building fiber-optic transmitters.
It was a quiet exit for the super-secret startup that strove to maintain its privacy through its four-year run as a separate company.
VSK made optical networking modules called photonic receivers. They sit inside a telecommunications network and act as mediators to convert light signals into electrical ones interpreted by computers, telephones and other devices.
The company said the modules were cheaper and more efficient than existing photonic receivers, called photodiode receivers, made by companies such as Texas Instruments Inc. The receivers use a material called indium phosphide as a conducting agent.
VSK believed its products eventually could replace photodiode devices.
VSK becomes Archcom's receiver product line.
The startup had been one of Orange County's most watched companies among venture capitalists. With a total of...