Intel To Acquire Optical Chipmaker

Intel Corporation today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire GIGA A/S, an NKT company, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.25 billion.

Intel's acquisition of GIGA targets the market segment for high-performance networking chips enabling the rapid build-out of the fiber-optic infrastructure necessary to support the explosive growth of the Internet.

GIGA, founded in 1988, specializes in the design of advanced high-speed communications chips used in the optical networking and communications products that direct traffic across the Internet and corporate networks. GIGA is a leading supplier of OC-48 (2.5 gigabits-per-second) and OC-192 (10 gigabits-per-second) products to telecommunications and data communications customers, with applications based on IP, ATM, DWDM and SONET/SDH transmission standards. The company's optical networking products are targeted for a range of applications that speed transmission over the Internet backbone.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/cn031500.htm