Nokia makes optical acquisition to support new markets
Created February 24, 2020
News and BusinessNokia is acquiring Elenion Technologies, a US-based company focusing on silicon photonics technology, to boost its optical capabilities in new markets.
Elenion’s technology expertise and unique design platform and services will enable Nokia to expand its market footprint by addressing the critical and rapidly evolving optical connectivity requirements of 5G, cloud and enterprise networking, Nokia said.
“Ownership of these key assets brings time-to-market and cost advantages to Nokia’s broad portfolio of networking solutions, by applying the massive scale and economies of silicon design and manufacturing to the optical supply chain,” said Nokia.
Elenion develops highly integrated, low-cost silicon photonics technologies for short-reach and high-performance optical interfaces, and has pioneered a design toolset which enables a “greatly simplified, low cost, scalable manufacturing process”, it said. The Elenion platform is designed to simplify integration with optical chipsets, lower power consumption, improve port density and help lower the overall cost per bit for network operators.
Elenion was founded in 2014 and is privately held, headquartered in New York. The planned transaction is expected to close in Q1 2020, subject to regulatory approval.
Sam Bucci, head of optical networking at Nokia, said, “As a world-class provider of silicon photonics solutions, advanced packaging and custom design services, Elenion provides a strong strategic fit for Nokia. Its solutions can be readily integrated into Nokia’s product offerings to address multiple high growth segments including 5G, cloud and data centre networking.”
He said, “When combined with Nokia, Elenion technologies will accelerate the growth and scale of Nokia’s optical networking business, while enabling us to cost-effectively address new markets.”
Larry Schwerin, CEO of Elenion Technologies, said, “Nokia is an industry leader in networking systems, including advanced coherent optical interfaces and hyperscale data centre solutions. Elenion benefits by having its technology incorporated into an industry-leading portfolio and with a company offering solutions across a wide array of networking applications.”
Schwerin added, “Nokia’s strong optical industry leadership, size, scale, global reach and ongoing commitment to investment in key technologies vastly accelerates the adoption of Elenion silicon photonics technology.”
For more information, visit www.nokia.com
