<title>Fiber fusion splicer for 12-fiber ribbon</title>

We have developed a high precision fusion splicer, which can instantly splice a 12-fiber ribbon at the maximum. By automatic inspection on a fiber ribbon at the stage of pre/post splicing, a estimated splice loss can be inferred through calculation. In the case of splicing a 12-fiber ribbon, the resultant splice losses averaged 0.03 dB, while 2 min. were required for splicing.