The Cure for Bandwidth Blues?

Semiconductor manufacturer Intel Corp. , in a move to
bolster its optical networking business, paid about $50 million in cash for
the tunable laser business and technology of photonics solutions provider New
Focus Inc.


Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel said that about 40 employees from San Jose,
Calif.-based New Focus are joining
Intel as well.


The acquisition is aimed at giving Intel a leg up in the optical bandwidth
business by employing
tunable laser technology that lets service providers adjust the size of their
pipelines more or less on the fly, a process known in the communications
industry as “dynamic provisioning.”


For those with a technical bent, Intel said that the tunable laser technology
“will enable Intel to offer small form factor, low-cost tunable optical
transceivers to accelerate the deployment of dense wavelength division
multiplexing (DWDM) equipment. DWDM equipment is used in optical
communications networks to dramatically increase the available bandwidth of
the existing fiber infrastructure.”


“This acquisition augments the significant optical networking business that
Intel has built over the past several years …” said Gordon Hunter, vice
president of the Intel Communications Group and general manager of the
company’s Optical Products Group. The move builds on Intel’s acquisition of
LightLogic last year.


Intel, which is trying to turn its money-losing communications business into
a powerhouse akin to its microprocessor business, said that DWDM equipment
separates light waves that travel over existing optical fibers into as many
as 80 individual wavelengths, each capable of carrying 10 gigabits of data
per second.


The problem is that each wavelength usually requires a separate laser
designed to drive a specific wavelength over the fiber. Tunable transceivers
can be adjusted through software to send different wavelengths of light over
a fiber. Therefore, original equipment manufacturers can lower their costs by
only qualifying and stocking a single tunable transceiver rather than
different fixed wavelength parts.


As part of the deal, New Focus and Intel also agreed that Intel will supply
New Focus with products developed by Intel using the acquired technology.

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