WOBURN, Mass., April 3 -- Aegis Semiconductor said it has developed a new class of tunable components based on its Active Thin Films technology platform, designed for intelligent wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission systems. The company said the platform, which combines thin-film semiconductor materials with dielectric optical coatings, enables it to deliver tunable components with comparable size, reliability and price of passive components. "Our Active Thin Films platform leverages proven semiconductor fabrication, test and packaging processes to deliver an order-of-magnitude reduction in cost for tunable optics," said Matthias Wagner, Aegis's founder and CEO. "Equipment vendors can now deliver intelligent transmission systems to service providers without the additional costs traditionally associated with tunability." The company also announced its first product based on active thin films, the mosquito optical channel monitor, which it said provides full C- or L-band monitoring and is designed to be embedded into WDM nodes and repeaters at a very low cost. The mosquito is undergoing trials with equipment vendors and will be available in mid-2003, Aegis said. For more information, visit: www.aegis-semi.com