The authors present the design, fabrication and characterisation of passive photonic components using InP optical wire technology. These components are straight and curved waveguides as well as Y-junctions. Their ultimate use is to be integrated within active nanophotonic functions and this is implicitly targeted in the different parts of this process work. First, propagation and excess losses because of a bend or Y-junction are modelled using a beam propagation method or a finite difference time domain method. Then, the technological process used to fabricate these components is presented; it is mainly based on e-beam direct writing and inductively coupled plasma deep etching. Finally, the different losses are measured and results are compared with the theory. The authors demonstrate, thus, that the use of submicron waveguides (or optical wire) can lead to very compact optical passive functions on InP since very small radius bends and wide angle Y-junctions showed almost low excess loss.