Nokia buys Elenion for its expertise and partnerships

Nokia will become the latest systems vendor to bolster its silicon photonics expertise with the acquisition of Elenion Technologies. 

The deal for Elenion, a privately-held company, is expected to be completed this quarter, subject to regulatory approval. No fee has been disclosed.

Kyle Hollasch

“If you look at the vertically-integrated [systems] vendors, they captured the lion’s share of the optical coherent marketplace,” says Kyle Hollasch, director of optical networking product marketing at Nokia. “But the coherent marketplace is shifting to pluggables and it is shifting to more integration; we can’t afford to be left behind.”   

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Cisco-Acacia blurs the optical ecosystem vendor divide

Cisco Systems’ acquisition of Acacia Communications would make it first to market with a 400ZR pluggable coherent interface. So claims Vladimir Kozlov, CEO of LightCounting Market Research. 

“This is the main reason Cisco is doing the deal,” says Kozlov. “It is very important for Cisco to get its core routers with DWDM optics and push network evolution in this direction.” 

Cisco is keen to grow its market share among service providers and lead in the development of software for automating telecom networks centred around routers, he says: “This will be the best way for Cisco to re-energise its optical transport business.”

Tom Williams, Acacia“We are planning to sample [the 400ZR] before the deal closes,” says Tom Williams, vice president for marketing at Acacia. “Our plan is to be first to volume, that is the most important thing.”

The acquisition is expected to be completed in the second half of Cisco’s fiscal year, 2020 (February-July 2020).

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Interview: Finisar’s CEO reflects on a notable year

Michael Hurlston has had an eventful 2018. 

The year started with him replacing Finisar’s veteran CEO, Jerry Rawls, and it is now ending with Finisar being acquired by the firm II-VI for $3.2 billion.

Michael Hurlston

Finisar is Hurlston’s first experience in the optical component industry, having spent his career in semiconductors. One year in and he already has strong views about the industry and its direction.

“We have seen in the semiconductor industry a period of massive consolidation in the last three to four years,” says Hurlston, in his first interview sinced the deal was announced. “I think it is not that different in optics: scales matters.”    

Hurlston says that, right from the start, he recognised the need to drive industry consolidation. “We had started thinking about that fairly deeply at the time the Lumentum-Oclaro acquisition was announced and that gave us more impetus to look at this,” says Hurlston. The result was revealed in November with the announced acquisition of Finisar by II-VI.

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Juniper Networks to acquire Aurrion for $165 million

The announcement of the acquisition was low key. A CTO blog post and a statement that Juniper Networks had entered into an agreement to acquire Aurrion, the fabless silicon photonics start-up. No fee was mentioned.

However, in the company's US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Juniper values the deal at approximately $165 million. "The Company believes the acquisition will help to fuel its long-term competitive advantage by enabling cost-effective, high-density, high-speed optical networks," it said. The deal is expected to be closed this quarter.

Source: Gazettabyte

At first glance, Juniper is simply the latest in a series of systems vendors bringing silicon photonics in-house. Silicon photonics is a technology that allows photonic devices to be made on a silicon substrate, fabricated in a CMOS facility.

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