Blaze Network Products Inc., an optical networking subsystem company, announced that Motorola and Foxconn are joining forces with Blaze to become strategic investors in Coarse Wave Division Multiplexing (CWDM) technology. The investments by Motorola, a global communications company, and Foxconn, a provider of mechanical solutions, are the last part of a larger round of funding Blaze previously announced in November 2000.
According to Daniel Artusi, Motorola's corporate vice-president and general manager of the Networking and Computing Systems Group (NCSG), Blaze is developing scalable solutions for the bandwidth-lacking optical networking infrastructure. Motorola and Blaze share product development goals as the industry pushes towards 40-gigabit, 100-gigabit and terabit types of port performance.
While Motorola's contributions come in the form of ASICs, systems and module manufacturing, Foxconn brings expertise in volume manufacturing gained from their cost-sensitive, copper interconnect product lines.
The total investment made by Motorola and Foxconn is undisclosed. Previously, Blaze announced a total of $55 million in equity in two rounds of Venture Capital backed financing.
According to Kirk Bovill, director of product marketing for Blaze Network Products, the company is gearing up for the release of two key products over the next couple of months. "At that point, it will just become a matter of shipping against our backlog and customer forecasts starting with our one and ten gigabit products."
About Blaze Network Products:
Blaze Network Products develops and manufactures cost-effective, next-generation optical networking products. Using Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) technologies, Blaze seeks to redefine networking performance at the critical interface between electronic and optical components. Blaze has developed manufacturing processes to reduce the costs of premises and metro WDM solutions and enable widespread deployment of optical solutions in premise and metro area (MAN) networks. For more information, visit www.BlazeNP.com.
About Motorola:
Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) provides integrated communication solutions and embedded electronic solutions. Motorola Ventures (MV) is the global venture capital investment arm of Motorola, Inc. For more information, visit www.motorola.com.
About Foxconn:
Foxconn is the registered trade name for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. which provides mechanical solutions and manufactures PC connectors and cable assemblies. For more information, visit www.foxconn.com.