RED-C's founders include Yossi Boker, COO & CFO, in charge of business and finance tasks, while Dr. Uri
Ghera and Boaz Lissak, CTO and Chief Scientist respectively, are in charge of R&D. The vision for the
founding of the company was the perception of a substantial business opportunity for creating a
superior amplifier for telephone network operators employing optical fibers. At that point in time,
telephone networks faced an ever growing increase in traffic both for business and individual users,
depended on optical amplifiers to improve transmission.
During a visit to the company's Israeli facility Yosi Boker, explained to IHTIR, that those amplifiers provided
a flattened gain and low Noise Figure for a certain fixed gain. The plan was to exceed the limitations of the
existing art. RED-C's R&D group which today numbers 30 employees, half of whom are physicists
(including about 10 Ph.D.'s) together with electrical and software engineers, developed state-of-the-art
dynamic optical amplifiers. In contrast to the existing EDFA and Raman amplifiers, the RED-C product
delivers improved network performance and cost efficiency. "Our intellectual property is made up of six
pending patents and include unique algorithms. It results in more network spans and it either eliminates
or reduces the need for regenerators, which make up a major cost factor in networks' hardware," explained
Boker.
RED-C targets the high-end segment of the optical amplifier market, whose size is estimated at $772 million
for 2002, expanding to $1.1 billion by 2006. RED-C's targeted customers comprise leading optical
networking/ system vendors for the leading Ultra long-Haul and Metro applications. RED-C has conducted
successful field tests with Bezeq, Israel's National Telecom. Bezeq reported that the product's technical
concept was tested and confirmed. RED-C expects to launch the Raman product by the end of 2002.
Though initial sales have been made, in the normal course of events, months of testing are required to
gain approval, before substantial orders can be anticipated.
"Once our innovative line of dynamic EDFA is commercially deployed, we expect to play a significant role
in the global optical amplifier market. Our forecast is for annual sales to exceed the $50 million mark by
2005," projects Yossi Boker.
IHTIR was taken for a 'walk through" part of RED-C's 1,500 sq.m. (approx. 15,000 sq.ft.) leased space in
suburban Tel-Aviv. The facility has a fully-equipped production floor, accommodating up to 35 production
employees per shift, producing up to 10,000 optical amplifiers per annum.
A comprehensive set of automatic quality assurance and testing procedures is employed and includes
"torture tests" at highly elevated as well as freezing temperatures. The amplifier appears similar to a
conventional computer modem.
The company is well funded. MRV Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: MRVC), a world-class leader in optical
network components and systems, has provided a $16 million seed investment for slightly more than
one-third of equity .
EL-OP holds an equivalent amount of shares and the rest is held by company personnel.
At the recently held Annual IVA Israel High-Tech Conference, RED-C was named as "Israel's most likely to
succeed" startup in the telecommunication industry. Our overall impression is that RED-C has the
experience, personnel and vision to make a major impact on the highly competitive and rewarding
fiber-optic market industry.
RED-C was founded in early 2000, as a spin-off from Elop Electro-Optics Industries Ltd. Its founders were a
part of the group that had worked intensely to develop the Chromatis optical layer. RED-C Inc. registered
under the laws of the state of Delaware, USA, which fully-owns RED-C Ltd. the Israeli company, handles
all R&D and production operations. RED-C Inc.is responsible for all marketing and sales activities in North
America. RED-C Ltd. was granted an Approved Enterprise Status under Israeli law, entitling the company
considerable tax benefits.