Nokia says it will has agreed to purchase privately held silicon photonics company Elenion Technologies for an undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to close this quarter.
Elenion will be folded into Nokia’s Optical Networking unit, a part of the ION Business Group. It doesn’t appear that Nokia plans to offer Elenion’s services on the open market; instead Nokia will use the expertise for internal developments, including optical subsystems. “In 2019, Nokia announced the formation of a subsystems team within the optical networking group with the intent to provide subsystems internally to Nokia as well as explore other paths to market,” wrote a source at Nokia’s PR firm in an email to Lightwave. “This acquisition is in line with those plans.”
Founded in 2014 and backed by Marlin Equity Partners (see "Elenion Technologies emerges from stealth mode with silicon photonics optical engines"), Elenion is led by CEO Larry Schwerin. It focused on using its silicon photonics expertise to develop optical engines that its customers could integrate into their products, such as a Coherent Silicon Transmitter and Receiver (CSTAR) in a BGA platform that it debuted last year. In addition to a partnership with Molex (see “Molex, Elenion Technologies extend silicon photonics collaboration”), Elenion collaborated with fellow Marlin Equity company Coriant (see "Coriant offers 200-Gbps short-reach CFP2-ACO for Groove G30 platform”; Coriant is now part of Infinera), among other customers.
“As a world-class provider of silicon photonics solutions, advanced packaging, and custom design services, Elenion provides a strong strategic fit for Nokia,” commented Sam Bucci, head of optical networking at Nokia. “Its solutions can be readily integrated into Nokia’s product offerings and address multiple high-growth segments including 5G, cloud, and data center networking. 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.”
Nokia’s purchase follows the trend of systems houses buying silicon photonics companies to accelerate their optical transmission developments. Examples include Cisco’s purchases of Lightwire and Luxtera, Ciena’s acquisition of the silicon photonics line of TeraXion, and Juniper Networks’ buy of Aurrion.
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