Silicon photonics firm Kotura Inc of Monterey Park, CA, USA, which designs and makes silicon photonics application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for the communications, computing, sensing and detection markets, has reported revenue growth of 40% in 2012.
“From a product standpoint, 2012 was a turning point for our company,” says president & CEO Jean-Louis Malinge. “We exceeded 60,000 channels shipping per month, more than doubling from the previous year. In addition, we launched our 100Gb/s Optical Engine, which is targeted to data centers and high-performance computing applications,” he adds. “In 2012, we strengthened our technology position with the addition of seven new patents granted and 22 new patents filed, bringing Kotura’s total to 130 filed or granted technology patents – the strongest technology patent position in our industry.”
Following a high-growth year, Kotura says that the near future includes high-volume production of its Optical Engine, a low-power, 100Gb/s chip solution that supports the interconnect fabric for next-generation data centers and high-performance computing.
Pointing to the growing demand for faster, limitless access to digital information as a key driver for future growth, Kotura says that its photonic integrated chips address the pressing bandwidth and performance needs of data centers supporting cloud computing, virtualization and other data-intensive applications.
According to Cisco’s Global Cloud Index (released in October), data-center traffic will grow fourfold from 2011 to 6.6 zettabytes (a billion terabytes) by 2016. “Data-center and cloud traffic are global trends driven by the consumer’s need for instant access to digital information and the strong desire to access personal and business content anywhere,” says Malinge. “The growth of mobility is pushing performance demands on data centers in ways that we couldn’t have predicted five years ago.”
Kotura says that its Optical Engine addresses the performance demands being placed on data centers and high-performance computing interconnects. An inexpensive, small-form-factor chip solution that reduces power consumption and provides a high level of integration, the firm’s silicon photonics platform supports optical engines using wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM).
“As the only silicon photonics provider to offer WDM, Kotura’s Optical Engine offers distinct advantages, including reducing the cost of fiber and associated connectors within the interconnect fabric for 4x25GHz solutions by a factor of four, as well as readily expanding from four channels to eight, 16 or even 40 channels over a single strand of optical fiber,” adds Malinge.
For 2013, Kotura anticipates strategic partnerships, technology advances, and sampling of its Optical Engine by year end. “We’re optimally positioned for the explosive growth of silicon photonics into more and more markets,” reckons Malinge. “Kotura has invested heavily in its team and technology.”
Kotura will be demonstrating its Optical Engine at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC 2013) in Anaheim, CA (19-21 March).
