Molex buys Luxtera’s active optical cable line

JANUARY 11, 2011 By Stephen Hardy -- Molex Inc. (NASDAQ:MOLX and MOLXA) says it has acquired Luxtera’s active optical cable business. The two companies also have reached an agreement for Luxtera to continue to supply the Silicon CMOS Photonics chip sets that form the foundation of the active optical cables, including collaboration on chip sets to support expansion of the active optical cable portfolio.

Molex did not disclose the price it paid for the Luxtera product line, which was marketed under the Blazar name (see “Luxtera introduces low-power 40G AOC.”)

The assets Molex has acquired include QSFP+ (Quad Small Form Factor Pluggable) 40-Gbps Ethernet and InfiniBand active optical cables. These will be added to Molex’s existing active optical cable portfolio.

Molex anticipates the chip collaboration will see the development of 14-Gbps and four-channel 25-Gbps products for the 100 Gigabit Ethernet and InfiniBand markets. Molex described the collaboration agreement with Luxtera as “exclusive,” although Luxtera had previously signed a collaboration agreement with Amphenol and was supplying active optical cable technology to Siemon (see “Amphenol, Luxtera pair for active optical cables” and “Siemon intros QSFP+ 40G active optical cable”). Whether these two agreements will remain in place is not yet known.

“The acquisition of Luxtera’s AOC business immediately adds QSFP+ 40-Gbps products to our existing portfolio and further contributes to our tradition of innovation for our customers, allowing them to deliver high performance products,” said Doug Busch, vice president and general manager of Molex’s Global Fiber Optic Products Group. “We are very excited to be partnering with Luxtera on future AOC development because the combination of our interconnect expertise with Luxtera’s long reach, low power, and low bit error rate optical solutions will enable us to offer the highest level of photonics integration and performance available.”

Luxtera CEO Greg Young said the deal would enable Luxtera to “continue to accelerate its growth by focusing on our core Silicon Photonics technology platform, while at the same time expanding the reach of our technology to global markets and customers.”

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