Horizon's primary strength is the design (or re-design, as the case may be) of optical subassemblies for automation. Horizon's team has a comprehensive background in the field of fiber optics, taking research efforts "off the bench" and into manufacturing.

Drawing upon years of experience in automation, optoelectronic package design and testing, and a multitude of technical disciplines, Horizon has demonstrated novel solutions for today's WDM design and processing challenges. By targeting product families and creating common platforms for each, Horizon can rapidly tailor variations within a family, as the customer demands, and without major process or tooling changes. This philosophy is evident in Horizon's proprietary micro-fixture design and automated manufacturing process. This platform allows robots to mount micro-optics in small transferable fixtures that can be processed at various levels and converted into a variety of finished products.

Horizon is currently utilizing a qualified platform process to manufacture a family of free-space and OEM-specific isolators. Horizon is developing similar platforms for its micro-collimator and laminate isolator products. As these platforms mature, hybrid combinations are evolving in accordance with customer needs related to size, cost and increased functionality. Examples of other pending products include gain flatteners, attenuators and filter assemblies.

While Horizon's competitors offer catalogs of standard devices for installation into a customer's package, Horizon prefers to work with the customer on the front-end to tailor devices for next generation products. More and more, Horizon is fielding requests for devices not standard to the popular offerings - an area where the flexibility of its platform process provides a responsive and competitive advantage.

The primary benefits of Horizon's approach to manufacturing are (i) reduced costs as a result of higher yields and throughput, and (ii) product consistency as a result of eliminating manual labor. To the best of its knowledge, Horizon is the only manufacturer of free-space isolators using automated manufacturing.