Mellanox Technologies buys silicon-photonics maker Kotura

Yokneam, Israel and Sunnyvale, CA--Mellanox Technologies (NASDAQ: MLNX; TASE: MLNX), which makes end-to-end interconnects for servers and storage systems, has finished acquiring privately held Kotura for $82 million. Kotura produces silicon-photonics optical-interconnect technology for high-speed networking applications.

Kotura’s location in Monterey Park, CA will serve as Mellanox’s first R&D center in the United States.

100 Gbit/s silicon-photonic optical engines developed by Kotura will help Mellanox create ultra-high-speed data-center interconnects. In the manufacture of these 100 Gbit/s devices, Kotura uses a laser-diode facet-creation process developed and patented by BinOptics (Ithaca, NY) called etched-facet technology (EFT), which defines the facets through high-precision photolithography, rather than by cleaving. A passivation technique developed at BinOptics seals out temperature and humidity without the use of hermetic packages; also, the emission angle of the laser-diode light is defined by the EFT-produced geometry, allowing precise alignment of the laser to the grating couplers on the silicon-photonic chips.