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Optical Leaders Merge Expertise at CALIENT Technologies
Photonics Startup Leverages Innovators in World-Class Optical Engineering

Sunnyvale, Calif., June 5, 2000 – CALIENT Technologies, a new developer of intelligent, all-photonic switching systems and software, has assembled a top roster of engineering talent, needed to achieve a leadership position in the exploding field of opto-electronic and photonic switching. The latest appointment, that of John Drake, an expert in networking and routing, brings to five the number of world-renowned experts on CALIENT Technologies' lead engineering team.

"When I started CALIENT in March of 1999, I sought to create a team that would fulfill all core competencies needed to build a best-of-breed all-photonic system," said co-founder and chief executive officer, Charles Corbalis. "Today our team has internationally-recognized leaders in carrier-class switching, data communications, photonics, MEMS technology, optical routing, networking and network management. With one or two bright stars we would have great potential. With a team as skilled as this, I know we can lead the way in the worldwide migration to all-photonic networks."

Corbalis himself earned the distinguished reputation as the "Father of Frame Relay" for his primary role in the development and standardization of the technology, and other significant contributions he made to fast packet-based networking while at StrataCom and as vice president and general manager of Cisco Systems' Multiservice Switching / WAN Business Unit. "Charles had great vision for this technology, which was very unusual at the time," said Dick Moley, former StrataCom CEO, and CALIENT board member. "People like Charles have an entrepreneurial spirit and the skill to see new paradigm shifts. They believe passionately in something revolutionary, and can attract great people. Charles has assembled a world-class team, and this is a fantastic, promising technology. The breakthrough is that this brilliant team is making all-optical switching work reliably and cost-effectively."

Chief technology officer, Dr. John Bowers, is known internationally for his expertise in optics, and directs the engineering and manufacturing of CALIENT's photonic switch platform. Previously co-founder and CEO of Terabit Technologies (acquired by Ciena in 1998), director of the Multidisciplinary Optical Switching Technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and research scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Stanford University, Dr. Bowers has written over 100 papers on optics, and received the IEEE Leos Best Paper Award in 1995. He has also been named Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE and received the William Streifer Award for his work in high-speed opto-electronics. "I was involved in fiber optic transmission throughout the 80s and 90s," said Bowers, "and it became clear several years ago that the next real step was optical switching of the large amount of data coming out of these fibers."

"John is a very successful researcher, and a real visionary in optical communications, optical devices and pushing the technology frontier," said Dean Venkatesh Narayanamurti, of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. "He has pioneered several outstanding pieces of work in high-speed lasers and sensitive detectors, and has a prolific record of publications. John is unique in his understanding of the intimate connection between research and technology, and almost nobody is as well qualified to do the work he does in optical switching at CALIENT."

"I am honored to be part of such a team," said CALIENT's senior systems architect, Dan Blumenthal. Dr. Blumenthal is currently a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a respected optical networking expert. "All our strengths come from different places, to form a very unique combination. The company culture is there. The solution requires this kind of multidisciplinary team effort, and these ingredients are exactly what's needed."

Blumenthal is the recipient of some of the most prestigious awards a young engineer can receive, including the White House "Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers", the "National Young Investigator Award" from the National Science Foundation and the "Young Investigator Award" from the Office of Naval Research. While studying at Columbia University in 1985, he was part of the group that coined the term "all-optical networks" and demonstrated optical packet switching for the first time. He went on to pioneer optical deflection routing and byte-wide WDM, re-configurable WDM optical networks, and optical performance monitoring.

"Dan is one of the most innovative people in the field of optical networking," said David Farber, chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission, University of Pennsylvania professor and former academic mentor for Blumenthal. "People respect Dan's capabilities and his future potential. He is going to be one of the senior people in the future of data communications. The whole networking business will be revolutionized by the creation of all-optical networks, and Dan is a leader in that field."

Noel MacDonald, chief MEMS architect at CALIENT, has been working on MEMS technology for over fifteen years and is a noted world expert in the field. "The MEMS device is a crucial element in CALIENT's photonic switch, and I think it will have a huge impact," said MacDonald, who consults to the team on the design of the core optical switch. "The most exciting thing in the beginning of a small company is the attitude of the team. We have an exceptionally skilled and well-synched team that is going to make it happen."

In addition to fulfilling a major role at CALIENT, Dr. MacDonald is a professor of Engineering and he holds the Fred Kavli Chair for MEMS at UCSB. He is former director of the Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he led pioneering research programs in photonics, microelectronics, MEMS and other technologies. Prior to that he was professor and director of the School of Electrical Engineering and director of the Nanofabrication Facility at Cornell University. Dr. MacDonald has authored and co-authored over 70 publications, is a Fellow of the IEEE, and was recently named "Member National Academy of Engineering".

The final team member to round out CALIENT Technologies' technical prowess is chief architect, John Drake, who has twenty-five patents in networking and routing and is a Senior Member of the IEEE. He was Distinguished Engineer in the Office of CTO at FORE Systems, and led FORE's development of MPLS (multi-protocol label switching). He was also lead architect for IBM's Broadband Network Services. Drake is currently co-author of a half-dozen IETF Internet Drafts related to Multi-Protocol Lambda Switching, a key extension to the original MPLS crucial to the era of photonic networking. "We are advancing the work very quickly," he said of the MPLambdaS initiative. "Everybody is very interested in seeing it happen."

"The Holy Grail of photonic switching is what people have been seeking, and this team can create the whole systems solution," said Moley. "I enjoy revolutionary change. It is challenging to pursue a new paradigm that is wildly different than what has gone before it. It's fun to win, and change the world by making something revolutionary happen against daunting odds."

Corbalis emphasizes that just ten to twelve years ago many acknowledged the inevitability of packet technology for data and voice, but didn't believe it was coming anytime soon. "The success of StrataCom, Frame Relay and ATM proved them wrong," he said. "When we started this company a year ago most of the literature said photonic switching was four years away, but we have a passion for innovation, a passion for changing the world and a passion for doing things differently. It's exciting when like-thinking people come together and have the same perspective of what the end vision is. CALIENT can significantly shorten the cycle on delivering tomorrow's technology today."

About CALIENT Technologies

CALIENT Technologies is a new developer of intelligent, all-photonic switching systems that help service providers scale their networks for explosive bandwidth demands and deliver a new generation of wavelength services. CALIENT's architecture will provide a seamless ‘opto-electronic to photonic' migration path that is non-disruptive to legacy operations, and near-term opportunity for carriers to offer revenue-generating services from their photonic infrastructure. Founded in March 1999, the company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For additional information about CALIENT Technologies, visit www.calient.net.