Motorola Sews Up Fabric Switch Deal

Making yet another acquisition to enhance its telecom infrastructure line, Motorola has bought fabric switch maker Paceline Systems for an undisclosed amount of cash.

Paceline, privately held and based in Acton, Mass., makes computer interconnect products based on the InfiniBand specification.

The equipment boosts throughput up to eight times over Gigabit Ethernet and TCP/IP interconnects; reduces latency up to 90 percent; and pares communications overhead that consumes as much as half of server CPU cycles, according to Paceline.

Paceline began beta testing its product at the University of Washington and Sandia National Laboratories late last year.

“Offering more complete solutions will enable the migration of embedded applications to standards-based application enabling platforms,” said Wendy Vittori, a Motorola vice president.

The buy fits with Motorola’s strategy of helping OEMs accelerate time-to-market by making it possible for them to purchase standards-based building blocks and application-enabling platforms from a single vendor.

Last month, the company purchased Winphoria. That company makes soft-switches that work with 2G and 3G networks simultaneously and require less room, less power and can be deployed much more quickly than traditional legacy circuit switches.

In addition, Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola, which made its name in wireless handsets but continues to branch out, closed a deal for Next Level Communications, a maker of broadband network access gear.