Patents by Inventor Bart Erwin

Bart Erwin has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 6819824
    Abstract: Optical switch packaging techniques and optical switch components are described. In one aspect, an optical switch component that includes a die mounted on an interposer is described. The die has an exposed array of mirrors that can be used as part of an optical switch. Typically, the interposer will also have a fiber array mount arranged to receive a fiber bundle and to position the fiber bundle appropriately over the array of mirrors. In some embodiments, an optical switch can be formed by putting together two mirror image interposer based optical switch components. When placing two interposer based optical switch components together, an alignment frame may be positioned between the interposers to help maintain a desired spacing between the respective arrays of mirrors. In some such embodiments, an inner housing is provided that encloses the dice, the fiber array mounts the alignment frame and portions of the interposers, but leaves connectors mounted on the interposers exposed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 21, 2001
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2004
    Assignee: Calient Networks
    Inventors: David Welsh, James R. Sechrist, John Edward Bowers, Adrian Keating, Xuezhe Zheng, David Kinghorn, Bart Erwin, Roger Jonathan Helkey, Paul Wills