september 2003 2003 09 founder niels finseth steen bak christensen eivind johansen headquarters copenhagen denmark area served worldwide key people niels finseth ceo martin rofheart chairman iptronics executive chairman applied signals intelligence inc. steen bak christensen cto jesper wolf bek vp strategic accounts henning lysdal vp engineering steen gundersen vp sales & marketing thomas skov reunert director sales asia anders andersen director operations products low power single & multi channel broadband transimpedance amplifiers tia and vcsel drivers for optical data communication applications subsidiaries iptronics inc. menlo park ca . website www.iptronics.com iptronics is a fabless semiconductor company headquartered in copenhagen denmark . its products include integrated circuits for parallel optical interconnect applications intended for the computer storage and communication industries . 1 2 iptronics design center is certified by stmicroelectronics which is also their semiconductor foundry partner . 3 in june 2013 it was announced that iptronics was acquired by mellanox technologies at a total cash purchase price of approximately 47.5 million subject to certain adjustments . 4 5 contents 1 history 1.1 founders and staff 1.2 early products 1.3 expansion 1.4 associations 2 technology 2.1 active optical cables 2.2 thunderbolt interface 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit iptronics is founded 2003 and built up by former directors managers and engineers from giga a s which was acquired by intel corporation in 2000 for 1.25 b usd . 6 7 on june 4 2013 it was announced that iptronics was acquired by mellanox technologies at a total cash purchase price of approximately 47.5 million subject to certain adjustments . 4 founders and staff edit three former giga employees niels finseth steen bak christensen and eivind johansen co founded iptronics . giga a s specialized in products for telecommunication and data communication applications as for example oc 48 and oc 192 . mr. finseth was previously an engineering manager responsible for all 10 gbit s ic product development . mr. christensen was also previously an engineering manager responsible for all 2.5 gbit s development . dr. johansen was a co founder of giga 1987 as well serving as the technical director until the acquisition by intel followed by a cto position at intel s optical component division ocd and being appointed intel fellow in 2001 a corporate vp position for his technical leadership in optical communication . in may 2004 henning lysdal was recruited as coo previously high speed phy development manager at intel ocd . 8 mr. lysdal later became vp of engineering after hiring a dedicated director of operations . two former colleagues from giga intel who were at that time ceos in their respective danish electronic companies were recruited to iptronics to accelerate global sales . steen gundersen came from a position as the ceo of alight technologies and jesper wolf bek came from a position as the ceo of kaleido technology . one of the characteristics of giga was their focus on customer support and the founders of iptronics claim to have incorporated this philosophy into their new venture . 9 10 in 2006 intel closed its danish office which resulted in even more new electronics start ups in copenhagen metropolitan area as well as many employees joining already existing companies such as iptronics . 11 however several new additions to the staff from 2008 and beyond have a different background than from giga or intel such as navid ostadian binai . during 2006 the company appointed j rgen bardenfleth as the chairman of the board . mr. bardenfleth is the country general manager of microsoft denmark and he has previously worked with the iptronics founders when he was the country general manager of intel denmark as well as the general manager of intel ocd . 12 13 in november 2011 iptronics announced that it has appointed dr. martin rofheart as the new chairman of the board of directors . dr. rofheart held various senior executive roles in high technology companies focused in the optical copper and wireless industry segments . most recently he was senior vice president and general manager of analog and mixed signal products for gennum corporation where he managed a portfolio of 10 gbit s analog semiconductor products . prior to that dr. rofheart held executive roles at freescale semiconductor and was ceo of xtremespectrum inc. 14 15 other members of the board include eivind johansen partner 10i10 co founder iptronics martin hauge general partner creandum jimmy fussing nielsen managing partner sunstone capital and peter ulrik scheel senior vice president head of global r & d gn resound . 16 early products edit the company s first customer was cern the european organization for nuclear research . the iptronics chips were produced with triquint semiconductor s gaas foundry process technology . these devices are being used as front end electronics for resistive plate chambers rpc a gaseous particle detector capable of sub nanosecond time resolution on very large areas . 17 in october 2005 iptronics started developing optical interconnects in a collaboration with nec corporation . 18 19 expansion edit in the beginning the founders worked together in the garage of steen bak christensen in roskilde . as the first employee was hired in february 2005 iptronics moved into new premises outside roskilde . 20 during the summer of 2008 iptronics opened its north american office in silicon valley . 21 associations edit in april 2010 iptronics joined the infiniband trade association 22 23 enabling the company to influence and contribute to the ongoing development and maintenance of the infiniband architecture specifications . in addition iptronics announced it will especially bring low power and high volume manufacturing expertise to the table . 24 iptronics later also joined the associations optical internetworking forum oif and peripheral component interconnect special interest group pci sig . 25 26 semiconductor wafers showing iptronics designed ics for parallel optical interconnects using a stmicroelectronics fabrication process technology edit this chip technology enables parallel optical interconnect systems that computer manufactures have begun to adopt in order to overcome the physical constraints from using copper based connections over high speed interfaces and backplanes . 27 28 parallel optics is introduced to be able to simultaneously transmit and receive data at high bandwidths over multiple fibers initially implemented in supercomputers and servers followed by an upcoming introduction into consumer electronics . 29 in june 2011 iptronics announced it had reached a shipment milestone passing 1 million ics and the company states the majority is shipped to asia . 30 active optical cables edit late 2007 iptronics started shipping 4 channel and 12 channel chipsets capable of operating at a minimum of 10 gbit s per channel primarily targeting data center and supercomputer applications . 31 a chipset consists of a vcsel driver and a transimpedance amplifier tia . the company also states to have qualified solder bump versions of the same two chipsets to be used for flip chip mounting the preferred assembly technology in high volume production . 32 early 2010 iptronics announced the availability of 16 gbit s version of their 4 and 12 channel vcsel drivers and tias with a compatible footprint in both wire bond and solder bump solutions . 33 34 the company announced in june 2010 that it is now also addressing the market for lower rates especially driven by hdmi cables at higher volumes and a substantially lower cost structure than current active optical cables for infiniband qdr and beyond . 24 at the 2010 exhibitions of cioe china international optoelectronic exposition and ecoc european conference and exhibition on optical communication the company presented a live demonstration of their optical hdmi solution by transmitting signals from a blu ray dvd player to a hd lcd television targeted to deliver the solution to the market from 2011 . 35 in january 2011 iptronics released a new 4 channel chipset for pluggable module applications and the company claims to have reduced the power consumption compared to their first generation 4 channel chipset . 36 in march 2012 iptronics announced operation of its 28 gbit s channel chipset with select partners and the company claims that the ecosystem has matured to deliver at the mentioned frequencies . 37 thunderbolt interface edit iptronics is one of the companies that is producing thunderbolt technology original code name light peak . 38 39 40 41 thunderbolt was brought to market by apple in february 2011 42 43 and light peak is intel s code name for the new high speed cable technology designed to connect consumer electronic devices to each other using copper or optical interconnect . 44 iptronics is a supplier of driver and receiver ics that go into the optical module performing the conversion from electricity to light and vice versa using miniature lasers and photodetectors . 41 the ics from iptronics are dual channel where each channel operates at a minimum of 10 gbit s. 41 in october 2010 the company announced availability of a new silicon revision . 45 they claim the same cost competitiveness enabling optical module and cable applications such as thunderbolt implementation though now also single channel optical links up to 14 gbit s. besides thunderbolt the devices are claimed to be used in a plethora of applications such as but not limited to sfp replacement cables sfp transceivers data center point to point cables proprietary links in both consumer and data center applications . see also edit thunderbolt interface optical interconnect parallel optical interface interconnect bottleneck optical communication optical cable transimpedance amplifier photo diode vcsel pin diode green computing infiniband infiniband trade association fibre channel hdmi pci express small form factor pluggable transceiver terabit ethernet 100 gigabit ethernet 10 gigabit ethernet optoelectronics data center high performance computing cloud computing cxp connector active cables c form factor pluggable fiber optic communication optical link list of device bandwidths networking cables top500 references edit iptronics private company information . businessweek . iptronics enables 40ge 100ge and beyond . fibersystems.org . december 16 2008 . retrieved march 20 2009 . iptronics about us partners . iptronics . retrieved march 20 2009 . a b mellanox technologies ltd. announces definitive agreement to acquire iptronics a s . nasdaq . retrieved june 4 2013 . iptronics acquired by mellanox technologies . navidob.com . retrieved august 22 2013 . http www.eetimes.eu 206800294 intel to buy giga for 1.25 billion . cnet . march 15 2000 . retrieved march 20 2009 . iptronics supplier of silicon for parallel optical interconnects raises 10.25 m in series b funding round . optical key hole . february 19 2008 . retrieved july 21 2010 . http www.iptronics.com 36392 management giga venner satser p at lave ny giga . business.dk . february 19 2008 . retrieved july 22 2010 . http www.ue.dk nyhedsarkiv 5921 . aspx j rgen bardenfleth adm. direkt r microsoft denmark pdf . globalisering.dk . retrieved nov 25 2010 . iptronics developing optical interconnect products closes 2m in second round funding . optical keyhole . october 13 2006 . retrieved nov 25 2010 . high speed analog optical and wireless semiconductor executive brings global market expansion expertise to iptronics board of directors . pr newswire . retrieved nov 29 2011 . iptronics appoints dr. martin rofheart chairman of the board . iptronics . retrieved november 29 2011 . iptronics about us board of directors . iptronics . retrieved november 24 2011 . triquint powered integrated circuits used in big bang experiment at cern facility . reuters . october 7 2008 . iptronics developing optical interconnect products closes 2m in second round funding . optical keyhole . october 13 2006 . iptronics cooperate with nec on tiny optical module iptronics enables low power modules . iptronics . october 3 2005 . iptronics supplier of silicon for parallel optical interconnects raises 10.25 m in series b funding round . optical keyhole . february 20 2008 . retrieved november 22 2010 . http www.iptronics.com 37456 iptronics % 20incorporated infiniband trade association member roster . retrieved may 4 2010 . infiniband trade