Luxtera Inc., a subsidiary of

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

, is a

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

company that uses

silicon photonics Silicon photonics is the study and application of photonic systems which use silicon as an optical medium. The silicon is usually patterned with sub-micrometre precision, into microphotonic components. These operate in the infrared, most commo ...

technology to build complex electro-optical systems in a production silicon

CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...

process. The company uses

fabless manufacturing Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclus ...

; it uses

semiconductor fabrication plant In the microelectronics industry, a semiconductor fabrication plant (commonly called a fab; sometimes foundry) is a factory where devices such as integrated circuits are manufactured. Fabs require many expensive devices to function. Estimates ...

s of

Freescale Semiconductor Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embed ...

. The company received $130 million in funding and was acquired by

in 2019 for $660 million.

History

The company was founded in 2001 by a group of professors and students at

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

including Axel Scherer,

Michael Hochberg Michael Hochberg (born 1980) is an American physicist. He’s authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, has founded several companies, and has been an inventor on over 60 patents. Hochberg's research interests include silicon photonics a ...

Tom Baehr-Jones Tom Baehr-Jones (born January 15, 1980 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American physicist who has made contributions in the field of Nanophotonics. His findings have been published in ''Nature'', Science, ''Nature Photonics'', ''Nature Materials'', th ...

, and

Eli Yablonovitch Eli Yablonovitch (born 15 December 1946) is an American physicist and engineer who, along with Sajeev John founded the field of photonic crystals in 1987.M.Kapoor (2013Electromagnetic Band Gap Structures page 58 He and his team were the first t ...

. In 2006, the company received a $5 million contract from the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

. In August 2007, the company introduced Blazar, a 40GB optical

active cable Active cables are copper cables for data transmission that use an electronic circuit to boost the performance of the cable. Without an electronic circuit, a cable is considered a passive cable. Passive cables are liable to degrade the data they ca ...

for interconnect within high performance

computer cluster A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software. The comp ...

s using

single-mode optical fiber In fiber-optic communication, a single-mode optical fiber (SMF), also known as fundamental- or mono-mode, is an optical fiber designed to carry only a single mode of light - the transverse mode. Modes are the possible solutions of the Helmholtz ...

. In 2010, Luxtera was selected as one of MIT Technology Review's 50 Most Innovative Companies. In February 2019,

acquired the company.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.luxtera.com/ 2001 establishments in California 2019 mergers and acquisitions Companies based in Carlsbad, California Fabless semiconductor companies Semiconductor companies of the United States Technology companies established in 2001 Cisco Systems acquisitions