Sumitomo: Type-37

The Type-37 Micro-Core splicer features the smallest foot print size in the world and is one of the lightest and fastest core alignment fusion splicers available today. The splicer's 75-second reinforcement sleeve heater cycle time is the lowest in the industry. A portable, fully-automatic, self-contained instrument for creating low-loss optical fiber splices in both field and factory environments, it is designed to work with virtually all fiber types including single-mode, multimode, dispersion shifted, and other specialty fiber.

The splicer automatically aligns a pair of optical fibers in both the X and Y (horizontal and vertical) planes and then fuses them together with heat from an electric arc to form a low-loss splice. HDCM (High-resolution Direct Core Monitoring) image processing software in the splicer is used to perform core alignment and estimates the splice loss. The operation requires less than 18 seconds, and the average splice loss is 0.02 decibels (dB) for identical single-mode fibers.