TRW (Redondo Beach, Calif.) said establishing the new company, Velocium, would allow it to leverage its $300 million investment in commercial indium phosphide (InP) and gallium arsenide (GaAs) technologies. The company has also invested an additional $70 million this year to expand its InP manufacturing capacity.

TRW executive Dwight Streit, an IC industry veteran, will head Velocium, which will be based in Manhattan Beach, Calif.

The company's first InP product is a 40 Gbit/s OC-768 integrated photo-receiver, which will be available in volume quantities later this month. Additional OC-768 and OC-192 components are scheduled to be ready by this summer, TRW said.

The TRW spin-off will focus on the market for components that provide greater bandwidth for wireless applications. The company claims its InP components provide four times the bandwidth of current components while using half the power.

The company is producing 4-inch InP wafers yielding components for fiber-optic transmission systems and next-generation mobile handsets. Along with integrated photo-receivers, Velocium will also manufacture modulator drivers, amplifiers for fiber-optic systems and InP power amplifiers for 2.5- and third-generation wireless handsets, TRW said.