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Kevin Drehmer, president of Digital Optics Corp., refuses to say much, much less brag, about the Charlotte-based company's photonic chips. It's not that Drehmer, 47, is unfriendly; he's just secretive. As far as he's concerned, letting slip information about manufacturing processes, clients, revenue, even employment, could help competitors such as Billerica, Mass.-based AXSUN Technologies.
Digital Optics' photonic chips, typically two cubic millimeters and made of silicon or quartz, combine many telecommunications components - lenses, lasers and mirrors, to name a few - on a single chip about a tenth the size, or smaller, of those parts separately.
Other people talk glowingly about Digital Optics. One is David
Norbury, president of Greensboro-based RF Micro Devices and one
of the judges of the High-Tech Company of the Year competition.
"I'm...