From EETimes: Optical communications components provider Finisar will get $390 million from customer Apple to open a manufacturing facility for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), a technology used in key features of Apple products, including iPhone X.
Finisar will use part of the funding to transform a long-shuttered, 700,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Sherman, Texas, into a workhorse of VSCEL manufacturing by the second half of next year, creating more than 500 jobs, including engineers and technicians, Apple said. The combination of the Sherman plant and another Finisar plant in Allen, Texas, is expected to bring Finisar's payroll in the state to more than $65 million.
VCSELs are used in some of Apple’s new features, including Face ID, made possible with the iPhone X TrueDepth camera. Apple said it bought 10 times more VCSEL wafers in the fourth quarter than were previously manufactured worldwide over a similar time period.
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