We present a number of compact wavelength-selective elements implemented in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photonic wires. These include arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs), Mach-Zehnder lattice filters (MZLFs), and ring resonators. The circuits were fabricated with deep UV lithography. We also address the sensitivity of photonic wires to phase noise by selectively broadening the waveguides, and demonstrate this in a compact AWG with -20 dB crosstalk and an insertion loss of 2.2 dB for the center channels