History

April 1990	New Focus™ is founded and incorporated in the State of California. The four founders, Dr. Milton Chang, Dr. Timothy Day, Dr. Robert Marsland and Frank Luecke (retired 1999), work in the Luecke garage with the mission to provide "Simply Better Photonics Tools."

January 1991	New Focus launches an eight-page catalog offering high-speed detectors, front-end receivers, optical mounts, mirrors and electro-optic modulators.

May 1992	New Focus offers its first tunable laser for spectroscopy, the Model 6102 at 670 nanometers.

May 1992	New Focus receives two industry awards for the 60-GHz ultrahigh-speed photodetector, the fastest detector on the market at that time.

May 1993	New Focus receives three industry awards for the tunable external-cavity diode lasers.

May 1994	New Focus introduces the Picomotor™ actuator, a revolutionary motor that uses a piezoelectric transducer to turn a screw.

November 1997	New Focus enters the telecommunications market and establishes a telecom group.

December 1999	New Focus begins production shipments of its polarization beam combiner-a key component for Raman amplification.

January 2000	New Focus introduces electro-optic coherence-control device and starts to supply hundreds of OEM electro-optic modulators to one of the world’s largest semiconductor capital-equipment manufacturers.

May 2000	New Focus completes its initial public offering on May 18, 2000, at a price of $20.00 per share and raises $115 million dollars. The company reincorporates in Delaware.

August 2000	New Focus completes a secondary offering on August 10, 2000, raising $440 million dollars.

September 2000	New Focus achieves #1 market share in the production of tunable lasers for the telecommunications test and measurement market.

February 2001	New Focus announces its tunable laser subsystem-the industry's first widely tunable laser for the network with the optical power levels required by the telecom backbone.

May 2001	New Focus introduces the industry's first 10-gigabit-per-second VCSEL for laboratory applications.

January 2002	New Focus introduces the Model 6528 swept-wavelength laser with an industry leading low noise figure of less than 70 dB while maintaining sweep speeds of 100 nanometers per second and a new family of closed-loop motorized stages.

June 2002	Tektronix™ selects New Focus as tunable laser provider for industry leading fiber-optic test platform.

July 2002	LeCroy™ Corporation selects New Focus as strategic provider of O/E converters.

January 2003	New Focus ships 4000th tunable laser.

March 2004	New Focus, Inc is acquired by Oclaro and becomes New Focus, a division of Oclaro.

May 2005	New Focus achieves Preferred Supplier rating at world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductor test equipment.

November 2005	Cymer™ Corporation selects New Focus for its Quality/Reliability Supplier Award.

January 2006	New Focus demonstrates OEM active beam-alignment system designed for an excimer laser system at Photonics West.

July 2006	New Focus launches Vacuum & Ultraclean product line at Semicon West.

July 2009	Newport acquires New Focus™ in asset exchange with Oclaro, Inc.