IBM AND KYMATA TEAM TO DEVELOP OPTICAL CHIPS FOR HIGH SPEED NETWORKS.

Moving closer to the realization of "all-optical" communications networks, IBM and Kymata Ltd. Have entered into a multi-year agreement to produce next-generation optical networking chips for high-speed e-business applications.

Under the agreement, IBM and Kymata plan to jointly develop innovative optical chips used to help networking gear drive data and information at higher speeds across optical networks. Products will be designed around IBM's unique siliconoxynitride (SiON) process technology. SiON applies high-volume semiconductor manufacturing techniques to optical chip-making for the first time, to yield cost/performance advantages that can extend the use of optics in voice and data networks.

IBM is licensing its pump laser technology and its innovative SiON technology to Kymata. SiON will enable Kymata to manufacture new chip designs for themselves and IBM. Sample products developed by IBM and Kymata are expected to be available to customers starting in the first-half of 2001. As part of this strategic relationship, IBM has acquired a minority equity stake in Kymata Ltd.

IBM and Kymata plan to develop a number of complex, yet cost-effective products to allow network equipment to work with optical signals rather than electrical. The highly-integrated, compact and tunable optical products IBM and Kymata expect to develop include: modules to provide enhanced functionality for filtering wavelengths of light beams sent through a fiber simultaneously; filters used to balance the intensity of light at different wavelengths; and versatile optical switches.

The advanced SiON process technology Kymata is licensing from IBM was developed at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, which is part of the company's industry-leading Communications Research and Development Center (CRDC). SiON uses a unique, cost-effective siliconoxynitride core waveguide layer to produce optical switching devices that are not only smaller and more flexible than similar devices produced by conventional manufacturing processes, but also allow for enhanced functionality not previously possible in optical communications networks. With the licensing of IBM's SiON technology, Kymata intends to use the technology to deliver complex, high-performance parts at a reasonable cost.