IPtronics
Encyclopedia
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. IPtronics' design center is certified by STMicroelectronics
, which is also their semiconductor foundry partner.
in 2000 for 1.25B USD.
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. Mr. Lysdal later became VP 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. 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. However, several new additions to the staff from 2008 and beyond have a different background than from Giga or Intel.
During 2006, the company appointed Jørgen 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 . 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 10Gb/s analog semiconductor products. Prior to that, Dr. Rofheart held executive roles at Freescale Semiconductor
and was CEO of XtremeSpectrum, Inc. 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
).
, 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.
In October 2005, IPtronics started developing optical interconnects in a collaboration with NEC Corporation.
.
, 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.
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. 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.
s capable of operating at a minimum of 10 Gbit/s per channel, primarily targeting data center and supercomputer applications. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
s that go into the optical module, performing the conversion from electricity to light and vice versa, using miniature lasers and photodetectors. The ICs from IPtronics are dual-channel, where each channel operates at a minimum of 10 Gbit/s.
In October 2010, the company announced availability of a new silicon revision. 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.
Fabless semiconductor company
A fabless semiconductor company specializes in the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing the fabrication or "fab" of the devices to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry...
headquartered in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. Its products include integrated circuits for parallel optical interconnect
Optical interconnect
Optical interconnect is a way of communication by optical cables. Compared to traditional cables, optical wires are capable of a much higher bandwidth, from 10 Gb/s up to 100 Gb/s....
applications intended for the computer, storage and communication industries. IPtronics' design center is certified by STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics is an Italian-French electronics and semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.While STMicroelectronics corporate headquarters and the headquarters for EMEA region are based in Geneva, the holding company, STMicroelectronics N.V. is registered in Amsterdam,...
, which is also their semiconductor foundry partner.
History
IPtronics is founded (2003) and built up by former directors, managers and engineers from Giga A/S, which was acquired by Intel CorporationIntel Corporation
Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...
in 2000 for 1.25B USD.
Founders and Staff
Three former Giga employees, Niels Finseth, Steen Bak Christensen, and Eivind Johansen, co-founded IPtronics. Giga A/S specialized in products for telecommunicationTelecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
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
Optical communication
Optical communication is any form of telecommunication that uses light as the transmission medium.An optical communication system consists of a transmitter, which encodes a message into an optical signal, a channel, which carries the signal to its destination, and a receiver, which reproduces the...
. In May 2004, Henning Lysdal was recruited as COO, previously High-Speed PHY
PHY
PHY is an abbreviation for the physical layer of the OSI model.An instantiation of PHY connects a link layer device to a physical medium such as an optical fiber or copper cable. A PHY device typically includes a Physical Coding Sublayer and a Physical Medium Dependent layer. The PCS encodes and...
Development Manager at Intel OCD. Mr. Lysdal later became VP 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. In 2006, Intel closed its Danish office, which resulted in even more new electronics start-ups in Copenhagen metropolitan area
Copenhagen metropolitan area
The Copenhagen metropolitan area around the city of Copenhagen, Denmark, has a population of 1,834,492 and an area of 2,861.41 km²-Composition:The area consists of:...
as well as many employees joining already existing companies such as IPtronics. However, several new additions to the staff from 2008 and beyond have a different background than from Giga or Intel.
During 2006, the company appointed Jørgen Bardenfleth as the Chairman of the Board. Mr. Bardenfleth is the Country General Manager of Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
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 . 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 10Gb/s analog semiconductor products. Prior to that, Dr. Rofheart held executive roles at Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is a producer and designer of embedded hardware, with 17 billion semiconductor chips in use around the world. The company focuses on the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets with its product portfolio including microprocessors, microcontrollers,...
and was CEO of XtremeSpectrum, Inc. 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
Jabra
Jabra develops, manufactures and markets wireless and corded headsets for mobile phone users, contact centres and office-based users. It is owned by . The Jabra subsidiary is based in Nashua, New Hampshire.-History:...
).
Early Products
The company's first customer was CERNCERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The IPtronics chips were produced with TriQuint Semiconductor
TriQuint Semiconductor
TriQuint Semiconductor is a semiconductor company that designs, manufactures, and supplies high-performance RF modules, components and foundry services. TriQuint primarily works with the semiconductor gallium arsenide, or GaAs, and is the number-three worldwide leader in GaAs devices and the...
's GaAs
Gaas
Gaas is a commune in the Landes department in Aquitaine in south-western France....
foundry process technology. These devices are being used as front-end electronics for Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC), a gaseous
particle detector
Particle detector
In experimental and applied particle physics, nuclear physics, and nuclear engineering, a particle detector, also known as a radiation detector, is a device used to detect, track, and/or identify high-energy particles, such as those produced by nuclear decay, cosmic radiation, or reactions in a...
capable of sub-nanosecond time resolution on very large
areas.
In October 2005, IPtronics started developing optical interconnects in a collaboration with NEC Corporation.
Expansion
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. During the summer of 2008, IPtronics opened its North American office in Silicon ValleySilicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
.
Associations
In April 2010, IPtronics joined the InfiniBand Trade AssociationInfiniBand Trade Association
The InfiniBand Trade Association is the standards organization that defines and maintains the InfiniBand specification. It is an industry consortium....
, enabling the company to influence and contribute to the ongoing development and maintenance of the InfiniBand
InfiniBand
InfiniBand is a switched fabric communications link used in high-performance computing and enterprise data centers. Its features include high throughput, low latency, quality of service and failover, and it is designed to be scalable...
architecture specifications. In addition, IPtronics announced it will especially bring low power and high volume manufacturing expertise to the table.
Technology
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. Parallel opticsParallel optical interface
A parallel optical interface is a form of fiber optic technology aimed primarily at communications and networking over relatively short distances , and at high bandwidths....
is introduced to be able to simultaneously transmit and receive data at high bandwidths
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
over multiple fibers, initially implemented in supercomputers and servers followed by an upcoming introduction into consumer electronics. 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.
Active Optical Cables
Late 2007, IPtronics started shipping 4-channel and 12-channel chipsetChipset
A chipset, PC chipset, or chip set refers to a group of integrated circuits, or chips, that are designed to work together. They are usually marketed as a single product.- Computers :...
s capable of operating at a minimum of 10 Gbit/s per channel, primarily targeting data center and supercomputer applications. 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
Flip chip
Flip chip, also known as Controlled Collapse Chip Connection or its acronym, C4, is a method for interconnecting semiconductor devices, such as IC chips and Microelectromechanical systems , to external circuitry with solder bumps that have been deposited onto the chip pads...
mounting, the preferred assembly technology in high-volume production. 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.
The company announced in June 2010 that it is now also addressing the market for "lower rates", especially driven by HDMI
HDMI
HDMI is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data. It is a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as radio frequency coaxial cable, composite video, S-Video, SCART, component video, D-Terminal, or VGA...
cables, at higher volumes, and a substantially lower cost structure than current active optical cables for InfiniBand QDR and beyond. 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. 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.
Thunderbolt (interface)
IPtronics is one of the companies that is producing Thunderbolt technology (original code-name: Light Peak). Thunderbolt was brought to market by Apple in February 2011, 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. IPtronics is a supplier of driver and receiver ICIc
IC, ic, or i.c. may stand for:In computing and technology:* .ic.gov, a second-level domain name administered by the US Government for members of the intelligence community* Integrated circuit* Initial condition...
s that go into the optical module, performing the conversion from electricity to light and vice versa, using miniature lasers and photodetectors. The ICs from IPtronics are dual-channel, where each channel operates at a minimum of 10 Gbit/s.
In October 2010, the company announced availability of a new silicon revision. 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
Data center
A data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems...
point to point cables, proprietary links in both consumer and data center applications.
See also
- Thunderbolt (interface)
- Optical interconnectOptical interconnectOptical interconnect is a way of communication by optical cables. Compared to traditional cables, optical wires are capable of a much higher bandwidth, from 10 Gb/s up to 100 Gb/s....
- Parallel optical interfaceParallel optical interfaceA parallel optical interface is a form of fiber optic technology aimed primarily at communications and networking over relatively short distances , and at high bandwidths....
- Interconnect bottleneckInterconnect bottleneckThe interconnect bottleneck, the point at which integrated circuits reach their capacity, is expected sometime around 2010.Improved performance of computer systems has been achieved, in large part, by downscaling the IC minimum feature size. This allows the basic IC building block, the transistor,...
- Optical communicationOptical communicationOptical communication is any form of telecommunication that uses light as the transmission medium.An optical communication system consists of a transmitter, which encodes a message into an optical signal, a channel, which carries the signal to its destination, and a receiver, which reproduces the...
- Optical cable
- Transimpedance amplifier
- Photo diode
- VCSELVCSELThe vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser, or VCSEL , is a type of semiconductor laser diode with laser beam emission perpendicular from the top surface, contrary to conventional edge-emitting semiconductor lasers which emit from surfaces formed by cleaving the individual chip out of a...
- PIN diodePIN diodeA PIN diode is a diode with a wide, lightly doped 'near' intrinsic semiconductor region between a p-type semiconductor and an n-type semiconductor region. The p-type and n-type regions are typically heavily doped because they are used for ohmic contacts....
- Green computingGreen computingGreen computing or green IT, refers to environmentally sustainable computing or IT. In the article Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices, San Murugesan defines the field of green computing as "the study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers,...
- InfiniBandInfiniBandInfiniBand is a switched fabric communications link used in high-performance computing and enterprise data centers. Its features include high throughput, low latency, quality of service and failover, and it is designed to be scalable...
- InfiniBand Trade AssociationInfiniBand Trade AssociationThe InfiniBand Trade Association is the standards organization that defines and maintains the InfiniBand specification. It is an industry consortium....
- Fibre channelFibre ChannelFibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards , an American National Standards Institute –accredited standards...
- HDMIHDMIHDMI is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data. It is a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as radio frequency coaxial cable, composite video, S-Video, SCART, component video, D-Terminal, or VGA...
- PCI ExpressPCI ExpressPCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards...
- Small form-factor pluggable transceiver
- Terabit EthernetTerabit EthernetTerabit Ethernet or 1TbE is a phrase used in current media to describe the next possible speed of Ethernet above 100 Gigabit Ethernet speeds. Facebook, and Google are a few companies that have expressed a need for 1TbE...
- 100 Gigabit Ethernet100 Gigabit Ethernet40 Gigabit Ethernet, or 40GbE, and 100 Gigabit Ethernet, or 100GbE, are high-speed computer network standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers . They support sending Ethernet frames at 40 and 100 gigabits per second over multiple 10 Gbit/s or 25 Gbit/s lanes...
- 10 Gigabit Ethernet10 Gigabit EthernetThe 10 gigabit Ethernet computer networking standard was first published in 2002. It defines a version of Ethernet with a nominal data rate of 10 Gbit/s , ten times faster than gigabit Ethernet.10 gigabit Ethernet defines only full duplex point to point links which are generally connected by...
- OptoelectronicsOptoelectronicsOptoelectronics is the study and application of electronic devices that source, detect and control light, usually considered a sub-field of photonics. In this context, light often includes invisible forms of radiation such as gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet and infrared, in addition to visible light...
- Data centerData centerA data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems...
- High-performance computingHigh-performance computingHigh-performance computing uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Today, computer systems approaching the teraflops-region are counted as HPC-computers.-Overview:...
- Cloud computingCloud computingCloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
- CXP (connector)CXP (connector)In the field of computer networking, CXP is a copper connector system with twelve 10 Gbit/s links suitable for 100 Gigabit Ethernet, three 40 Gigabit Ethernet channels, or twelve 10 Gigabit Ethernet channels. or a single Infiniband 12× QDR link. The C is the Roman numeral for 100 as a memory...
- Active CablesActive CablesActive cables are copper cables for data transmission that use a silicon chip to boost the performance of the cable. Without a chip, a cable is considered a 'passive' cable. Passive cables are liable to degrade the data they carry, due to such "channel impairments" as attenuation, crosstalk and...
- C Form-factor PluggableC Form-factor PluggableThe C form-factor pluggable is a multi-source agreement to produce a common form-factor for the transmission high-speed digital signals...
- Fiber-optic communicationFiber-optic communicationFiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. The light forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated to carry information...
- Optical linkOptical linkAn optical link is a communications link that consists of a single end-to-end optical circuit. A cable of optical fiber, possibly concatenated into a dark fiber link, is the simplest form of an optical link....
- List of device bandwidths
- Networking cablesNetworking cablesNetworking Cables are used to connect one network device to other or to connect two or more computers to share printer, scanner etc. Different types of network cables like Coaxial cable, Optical fiber cable, Twisted Pair cables are used depending on the network's topology, protocol and size. The...
- TOP500TOP500The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year...