Cortina Systems, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, raised $20 million in new venture funding for its analog and digital integrated circuits for the networking and communications equipment. Cortina's technology enables very high-speed analog and digital capabilities to be combined on the same CMOS device while meeting stringent SONET jitter requirements. The company is currently shipping chips that support multiple protocols, which include RPR and Ethernet MACs, SONET/SDH/Ethernet framers, and high speed SERDES, running at multiple rates from OC3 to OC192 and GE to 10GE. Cortina also supports XFP serial interface. Additional products are planned. Cortina said its ability to integrate these capabilities in CMOS simplifies physical communication at Layers 1 and 2, significantly lowering the cost and electrical power requirement of routers, switches and transport equipment. The integration reduces the number of line cards needed to support each protocol.
The new funding was extension of the B Round of financing initially concluded in February 2003, was led by Kodiak Venture Partners and joined by Hotung Capital Management. All of Cortina's existing venture capital investors participated in the extension, including Morgenthaler Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, El Dorado Ventures and INVESCO Private Capital.
Separately, Cortina announced the appointments of Bruce Margetson as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Behrooz Yadegar as Vice President in charge of all operations. http://www.cortina-systems.com
- Cortina Systems is headed by Amir Nayyerhabibi, who previously was co-founder and Vice President of Engineering at StratumOne Communications, which was acquired by Cisco in 1999. He also managed the development of 12416 and 12410 Cisco GSR Router programs.
- Cortina's team also includes Dr. Zino Chair, who most recently was in charge of Cisco's metro marketing group. Prior to that, Dr. Chair was a co-founder and VP of Marketing at StratumOne and a key member of the team that delivered the first 10 Gbps Packet Over SONET framer technology to the market.
