Apple Awards $390 Million to Face ID Tech Company Finisar -- 2nd Update
December 13 2017 - 3:52PM
Dow Jones News
By Cara Lombardo
Apple Inc. is awarding one of its key suppliers $390 million as
part of its effort to fund domestic technology manufacturers, the
tech giant said Wednesday.
The funding will enable Finisar Corp., Apple's second-largest
supplier of a laser technology used in its iPhone X's
facial-recognition capabilities, to speed up production and boost
its research-and-development efforts, Apple said.
Finisar has recently started shipping production quantities of
its vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, or VCSELs. The device
is critical to Apple's Face ID recognition system, providing the
3-D sensing capabilities that detect a face. It is also used in
Portrait-mode selfies and the proximity-sensing capabilities of
wireless headphones.
Apple said it would buy 10 times more VCSELs in the fourth
quarter of 2017 than were previously manufactured world-wide over a
similar time period.
Finisar plans to remodel a 700,000-square-foot plant in Sherman,
Texas, to produce VCSEL arrays. Apple said its award will help
Finisar create more than 500 high-skill jobs at the plant,
including positions for engineers, technicians and maintenance
teams.
Finisar shares soared 27% premarket after the award was
announced.
The award is part of Apple's pledge to spend its $1 billion
Advanced Manufacturing Fund investing in U.S. companies engaged in
high-tech manufacturing. In May, Corning received the first award,
of $200 million, to expand its glass processing.
Write to Cara Lombardo at cara.lombardo@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 13, 2017 15:37 ET (20:37 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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