Finisar Corporation is a manufacturer of

optical communication Optical communication, also known as optical telecommunication, is communication at a distance using light to carry information. It can be performed visually or by using electronic devices. The earliest basic forms of optical communication date ...

components and subsystems. The company was founded in April 1987 by

Frank Levinson Frank H. Levinson is an American entrepreneur and investor. Levinson is best known for being co-founder (with Jerry S. Rawls) of Finisar Corporation. Levinson holds a BS in physics from Butler University, and a PhD in astronomy from the Universi ...

and Jerry Rawls in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park ( ) is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, California, Eas ...

. In November 1999, it went public via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

. In 2008 Finisar merged with Optium Corporation. In September 2019, Finisar was acquired by

II-VI Incorporated Coherent Corp. (formerly II-VI Incorporated) is an American manufacturer of optical materials and semiconductors. As of 2023, the company had 26,622 employees. Their stock is listed at the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol COHR. In ...

for US$3.2 billion. Finisar's products include optical transceivers, optical engines, active optical cables, optical components, optical instrumentation, ROADM &

wavelength In physics and mathematics, wavelength or spatial period of a wave or periodic function is the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. In other words, it is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same ''phase (waves ...

management, optical amplifiers, and RF-over-Fiber. Their products enable high-speed voice, video, and data communications for networking, storage, wireless, and cable TV applications.

Partnerships

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

announced a new partnership with Finisar in December 2017. The planned investment of $390 million will support Finisar's increase production of its R&D spending and high-volume production of

vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser The vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL ) is a type of semiconductor laser diode with laser beam emission perpendicular from the top surface, contrary to conventional edge-emitting semiconductor lasers (also called ''in-plane'' lasers ...

s that power some of Apple's features such as the

Face ID Face ID is a Biometrics, biometric authentication facial recognition system, facial-recognition system designed and developed by Apple Inc. for the iPhone and iPad Pro. The system can be used for unlocking a device, making Apple Pay, payments, ac ...

. The plant, supporting more than 500 jobs, is located in

Sherman, Texas Sherman is a city in and the county seat of Grayson County, Texas, United States. The city's population in 2020 was 43,645. It is one of the two principal cities in the Sherman–Denison metropolitan area, Sherman–Denison metropolitan statist ...

References

External links

* Companies based in Sunnyvale, California Networking hardware companies Optics manufacturing companies Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq 1987 establishments in California 1999 initial public offerings 2019 mergers and acquisitions Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies {{US-manufacturing-company-stub