Privately owned Calient Technologies has been acquired by Suzhou Chunxing Precision Mechanical Co., Ltd., who will buy a controlling stake in the company and provide manufacturing services to help it expand.
Founded in 2001, Chunxing is a publicly traded Chinese manufacturer of precision metal alloy and plastic structures for the automotive, consumer electronics, industrial, and telecom market segments.
The optical circuit switch developer will continue to operate from its Goleta, California, headquarters under the Calient brand.
Calient is expanding manufacturing to meet demand for its optical circuit switches, which are gaining customer acceptance in new markets. The company is targeting large data centres where they allow data centre operators to dramatically improve utilisation rates of expensive compute resources (see Calient pitches switches for data centre virtualisation).
Other applications for Calient’s switches include video stream management in live broadcasting and service provider lab automation (see Calient and Spirent team for all-optical test lab automation).
Calient’s switches are based on a proprietary 3D microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology that uses silicon micro-mirrors with unique structures to switch fibre-optic signals from port to port. Chunxing’s expertise in precision manufacturing will give Calient “significant added capabilities for manufacturing its core technology”, according to the press release.
The two companies also have a common base of existing and target global customers; by joining forces, they hope to broaden their global presence and increase sales.
“Chunxing and Calient share very similar management philosophies, cultures and values. This lays a very profound and solid foundation for our two companies to join together at a perfect time and with a perfect match to cope with the demands and challenges of keeping pace with a fast-growing new generation of optical switching technology,” said Carvin Chen, executive vice president of Chunxing, and Atiq Raza, CEO of Calient, in a joint statement.
