optical communications – Korean-Electronics.com

Micromini Aspheric Lenses

[INQ. NO. 1806E04] JTway (President & CEO: Ji-hwan Park), a company specializing in lenses, has localized the micromini aspheric lens. JTway recently announced that, with the support of optical design and analysis technology from the Korea Photonics Technology Institute, they had developed a microscopic aspheric lens with a diameter of 1mm and established a mass-production system capable of producing more than 400,000 pieces per month by introducing a special automation robot.
Aspheric lens is a key component for enhancing performance of the optical modules such as cameras, closed circuit (CC) TV, laser, etc. As micro aspheric lenses with a diameter of 1 mm were difficult to manufacture due to the high defect rate, mainly Japanese products were imported and used up till now. The micromini aspheric lenses now developed by JTway are cheaper by 10% or more than the existing Japanese products, and they are supplied as components for network servers, optical communications, and light emitting diodes (LEDs).
The company recently started joint development and production of aspheric lenses for LED with a Japanese enterprise of middle standing and plans to pursue exports to the USA, Japan, China and Taiwan by setting up agencies in those countries..
President & CEO Ji-hwan Park said, “The aspheric lens localized this time has better performance than Japanese products, so it is definitely getting a good response from customers. We plan to achieve turnover of KRW3 billion this year, which is more than twice as much as that of last year, by striving for quality control and delivery management.”

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A Global Top Manufacturer in the Field of Expanded Beam Connectors

Maekyung Buyers Guide conducted a personal interview with FOSTECH’s CEO Lee Soo-young who outlined the active expansion of the company in global markets.

Please introduce your company and tell us about your driving forces of growth

FOSTECH has maintained its business history as an excellent company in the field of optical communications for 18 years since its establishment in 2001. It has received wide recognition for the company’s excellent technology and in the field of management, including venture entrepreneur, INNO BIZ, MAIN BIZ, promising small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), export promising SMEs, excellent venture entrepreneur, etc. It continues to keep growing as it was selected as the world’s top product manufacturer in the field of expanded beam connectors, which is the company’s main product, especially in 2017. Currently, it gets sales figures of approximately 9 billion won with about 60 employees. It expects to grow with a goal of 20 billion won worth of sales by 2020.
The driving force of growth is constant development of technology and securing of excellent talent.
Securing excellent talent is essential to develop technology constantly. FOSTECH has been performing projects supported by the Korean government every year for research and development and investing approximately 10% of development expenses every year to develop new technology.

Please tell us about your company’s main products

For existing products, it was difficult to secure price competitiveness and the products’ competitiveness weakened due to the low level of difficulty of technology. Therefore, we developed new levels of products. Our company’s main product is a new-concept expanded beam connector. FOSTECH succeeded in commercializing it after about five years of research and development. It secured a stable client until 2025 as it became a key component for the defense program. It also achieved annual export figures of approximately US$2 million from 2016 by diversifying the product based on local demand. Core strategies for securing global competitiveness are to secure price competitiveness compared to other existing advanced products, to secure excellent performance, and also to enhance service. It is expected that overseas clients will continue to grow constantly in the future based on the stable base of domestic demand. For this, marketing activities are being strengthened.

Please tell us about your major export markets and emerging markets

At present, we are directly exporting to about 40 companies in 30 countries worldwide. The market we are focusing on recently is Southeast Asia.

If you have any special management philosophy as CEO, please tell us about it

My goal is to create stable jobs as our company continues to develop the business and to constantly invest and grow in this way. I also want to contribute to society through this.

Please tell us about future vision particularly for overseas buyers and customers

Our mid- and long-term goal is to have over 100 employees by securing 30 billion sales and achieving the 10 million dollar export in 2025 by constantly growing in the fields of communications, broadcasting, national defense and overseas business. For this, we will consistently trying to develop products suitable for the era of the 4th industrial revolution.
FOSTECH grew with the power of customers.
We think of customers as family and we will always remain closely involved in the fields that customers need.
We sincerely appreciate your helping us grow into our current status, and look forward to receiving your continued support.
Thank you!