FEBRUARY 9, 2009 -- EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. (search Lightwave for EXFO) has announced the acquisition of PicoSolve Inc. (search Lightwave for PicoSolve), a privately held test and measurement company that specializes in optical sampling oscilloscopes for 40G and 100G R&D, manufacturing, and deployment applications.
PicoSolve, founded in 2004 by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, serves network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) involved in the design and production of next-generation optical networks. Network service providers (NSPs) will also require such high-end test equipment for their deployment initiatives, EXFO asserts.
The Canadian test equipment company says that its new acquisition has the only bit-rate-independent test offerings that can measure phase- and amplitude-modulated signals with a measurement bandwidth of more than 500 GHz, yielding a sub-picosecond temporal resolution. EXFO also expects to leverage what it describes as PicoSolve's "rich intellectual property portfolio."
"PicoSolve represents a small but highly strategic acquisition because it significantly strengthens our leadership position for characterizing ultra-high-speed optical networks for the NEM and NSP markets," said Germain Lamonde, EXFO's chairman, president, and CEO. "PicoSolve's optical sampling oscilloscopes and the deep knowledge base that its team brings to EXFO will prove to be invaluable assets as technologies migrate from R&D labs, onto manufacturing floors, and into the field in upcoming years."