Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) has made what appears to be its final purchase of intellectual property (IP) core suppliers for high-speed line card equipment designs. The company says it has snapped up Sarance Technologies, which specializes in Ethernet MAC, Interlaken, and bridging cores, for an undisclosed amount.
Sarance is the third IP core vendor Xilinx has purchased this year with an eye toward positioning itself as a “one-stop shop” for FPGA-based line card designs targeting 40 Gbps, 100 Gbps, and beyond. The company previously bought Omiino for its Optical Transport Network (OTN) expertise and Modelware for its traffic management and packet processing technology (see “New Virtex-6 capabilities, Omiino acquisition point Xilinx toward 400G OTN FPGA support” and “Xilinx buys IP vendor Modelware for 100G traffic management”).
The Sarance buy received a passing grade from at least one analyst. "Ethernet and Interlaken applications are pervasive in communications equipment in both legacy and growth segments and we expect that adoption to continue along with the need to address the other aspects of the communications market," said Bob Wheeler, The Linley Group's senior analyst for networking silicon. "Sarance is recognized as the leading supplier of Interlaken IP and a leading supplier of Ethernet IP to the entire logic IC landscape and their technology further strengthens Xilinx's ability to serve the communications market with complete solutions."
Xilinx now appears finished with the rapid ramp of its high-speed IP core portfolio, aimed at making its Virtex-6 (particularly the Virtex-6 HXT) and Virtex-7 FPGAs more appealing to equipment designers working to develop 40- and 100-Gbps platforms with an eye towards 400 Gbps in the future. Asked to confirm that the shopping spree was over, a Xilinx source responded via email to Lightwave, “In terms of getting to where we want to be right now with the portfolio, that would be a true statement.”
The acquisition run, as well as similar moves by Altera and AppliedMicro, have nearly swept the board of independent suppliers of IP cores for high-speed networking applications (see “FPGAs positioned for 100G OTN, Ethernet designs”).
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