Cisco wraps up CoreOptics acquisition

JULY 16, 2010 -- Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) says it has completed its acquisition of privately held CoreOptics Inc.

CoreOptics was headquartered in San Jose, with the majority of its employee base in Nuremberg and Gerlingen, Germany. Cisco plans to use CoreOptics expertise to equip service provider customers with 100-Gbps transmission technology.

In particular, Cisco will leverage CoreOptics’ capabilities in next-generation modulation formats and advanced DSP technologies. Prior to the acquisition, CoreOptics had unveiled 40-Gbps modules based on dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying with coherent detection (which it called CP-QPSK). The Optical Internetworking Forum has chosen this technique as the basis of its work to create an ecosystem for 100-Gbps long-haul DWDM technology development.

Nokia Siemens Networks, Fujitsu Network Communications, and Ericsson are companies believed to have designed the CoreOptics technology into their DWDM platforms. Cisco says it plans to support CoreOptics’ existing customers; whether those customers will seek alternative technology sources rather than rely on a competitor remains unclear.

In addition to the gain in technology and expertise, Cisco says the acquisition expands its optical presence in Europe, building on its existing European operations in Monza, Italy. With the close of the acquisition, CoreOptics employees become part of the Cisco Service Provider Technology Group and work with Cisco's existing optical engineering teams in Monza, Bangalore, India, and Richardson, TX.

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