AppliedMicro to Acquire TPACK for Emerging OTN

AppliedMicro agreed to acquire TPACK A/S, a developer of programmable chip solutions for packet transport networks, for $32 million in cash plus up to $5 million in cash earn-outs depending on performance milestones over the next eighteen months.


TPACK, which is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, offers a "SOFTSILICON" solution implemented in Altera FPGA devices. The SOFTSILICON products are used in 10, 40 and 100 Gbps OTN switching and routing network equipment. Its silicon intellectual property (IP) for mapping and switching functions enable rapid time-to-market for Optical Transport Network (OTN) and Carrier Ethernet markets. Carrier Ethernet, in particular, has become TPACK's speciality whether it is transported over Ethernet, MPLS, VPLS, PWE3, PBT/PBB-TE, T-MPLS, SONET/SDH, PDH or OTN.


Founded in 2001, TPACK has 37 employees, including 28 design engineers, and brings a track record of innovative product development and steady financial growth as a privately-held company. Following the acquisition closing, the company will continue to operate from its Copenhagen office as a wholly-owned subsidiary of AppliedMicro.


AppliedMicro said that as OTN standards evolve and mature, it will use the early engagement work with customers and develop standard reference designs that maintain software compatibility while offering lower cost and lower power.


"While the OTN silicon market is growing rapidly, OTN standards and implementations are still evolving-- thereby offering system OEMs a broad field to uniquely differentiate their products with custom features and legacy support at various levels. This has led a large proliferation of FPGA technology within our customers' platforms. These FPGA solutions sit beside our products and together provide a scalable, system solution for our customers," said George Jones, Head of Marketing and Business Development for Transport products at AppliedMicro.
http://www.apm.com
http://www.tpack.com