Sunnyvale, CA and Yokneam, Israel--End-to-end communications and optical interconnect solutions company Mellanox announced its intent to acquire privately held Kotura (Monterey Park, CA), a developer of silicon photonics optical interconnect technology for high-speed networking applications. The companies say the combination of high-performance interconnect solutions with leading silicon photonics technology will enable next-generations 100 Gbps optical communication speeds and beyond. In the definitive agreement, Mellanox will acquire Kotura at a total cash purchase price of approximately $82 million subject to certain adjustments; the terms of the transaction have been unanimously approved by both the Mellanox and Kotura boards of directors.
The transaction is currently projected to close in the second half of 2013, subject to the completion of closing conditions. Mellanox currently expects the transaction to be accretive to its full fiscal year 2014 earnings by approximately $0.01 to $0.03 per share on a non-GAAP basis. Mellanox says the acquisition is expected to expand its ability to deliver cost-effective, high-speed networks with next generation optical connectivity, allowing data center customers to meet the growing demands of high-performance, Web 2.0, cloud, data center (http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-48/issue-12/features/optical-technologies-scale-the-datacenter.html), database, financial services and optical storage (http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-48/issue-10/features/photonics-applied-optical-data-storage-can-new-techniques-continue-to-densify-optical-data-storage-capacity.html) applications.
Silicon photonics is expected to play a significant role in the enablement of high-speed networks. With more than 120 granted or pending patents in CMOS photonics and packaging design, Kotura has made a number of innovations in optical interconnects by integrating multiple high-speed active and passive optical functions onto a silicon chip. Kotura’s technology will enable Mellanox’s interconnect products to reach 100 Gbps and beyond bandwidth, and have longer reach optical connectivity at a lower cost, allowing users to further reduce their capital and operating expenses and offer new revenue-generating services.
Mellanox expects to establish its first R&D center in the United States at Kotura's current location. Further, Mellanox intends to retain Kotura's existing product lines to ensure continuity for customers and partners.
"Operating networks at 100 Gigabit per second rates and higher requires careful integration between all parts of the network. We believe that silicon photonics is an important component in the development of 100 Gigabit InfiniBand and Ethernet solutions, and that owning and controlling the technology will allow us to develop the best, most reliable solution for our customers," said Eyal Waldman, president, CEO and chairman of Mellanox Technologies.
"This acquisition is important for both companies to enable interconnect innovation for data centers that require solutions that move data faster and more efficiently. Together, we can execute faster and deliver better solutions based on Kotura's silicon photonics platform that delivers the demands of 100Gb/s interconnects and beyond," said Jean-Louis Malinge, president and CEO of Kotura.
SOURCE: Mellanox; http://www.mellanox.com/page/press_release_item?id=1024