Specialty Optical Fibers Handbook

heavy emphasis on high-reliability specialty optical fiber, fiber optic sensors,

high-powered lasers, optic interconnect, which includes optical backplanes, and

countless other specialty optical fiber consumers such as passive and active

optical components.

1.1.5 High Cost of Functionality

The modest, or relatively small, quantities per year production of most of

these military/aerospace systems, combined with the requirement for extreme

reliability under severe environments and maximum miniaturization, has previ-

ously driven the cost of these components to, typically, 10–100 the cost of

functionally similar commercial components. A new emphasis on ‘‘commercial

off-the-shelf’’ (COTS) technologies, however, is intended to leverage solutions

for commercial ...