3/21/00 Following hard on the heels of last week's Xros announcement, Nortel Networks (Brampton, ON, Canada) has announced an agreement to acquire CoreTek (Wilmington, MA) for $1.43 billion. CoreTek develops and manufactures next-generation optical components such as tunable lasers and other devices for dense wavelength-division multiplexing and optical networking markets.

CoreTek is a leader in the use of vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers and micro-electromechanical systems for optical networks. CoreTek's solutions use tiny, movable mirrors to alter the wavelength of light emitted by semiconductor lasers and other optical components. The technology will complement Nortel Networks recent acquisition of Qtera and the proposed acquisition of Xros, announced last week.

CoreTek, a privately-held company with 120 employees, was founded in 1994. It expects to begin shipping its components in the fourth quarter of this year.