Cypress Semi Sees the Light
By Paul Kallender -- EDN, July 31, 2000
As a means to get a shoe in the door of the optical network technology market, Cypress Semiconductor Corp.'s Dan McCranie believes his company's purchase of Silicon Light Machines (SLM), announced last week, couldn't have been a better deal.
The deal packs several benefits for Cypress. For one, SLM's recent deal with Sony Corp., in which the Japanese giant will license the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company's microelectromechanical system (MEMS)- based Grating Light Valve (GLV) technology, proves SLM, also of Sunnyvale, has battle-tested products Cypress can sell. On the bottom line, the revenue stream from the ensuing royalties will actually make the $166 million stock deal accretive for the companies, said McCranie, Cypress's senior vice president of mergers and acquisitions.
However, McCranie explained that the Sony deal itself was not a compelling factor in deciding to buy the company. The deal actually may serve as Cypress's entry into the lucrative optical networking market.
SLM's GLV technology until now has been applied to the displays, capable of projecting high-resolution images for applications such as high-definition television. GLV employs tiny aluminum mirrors, each of which can project a pixel, mounted on flexible silicon nitride membranes on a MEMS. When an electrical signal is applied to the membranes, they flex, creating an interference pattern that effectively switches a pixel on or off.
Cypress believes GLV also can be applied to optical data communication-aligning fibers, switching light beams and transporting light beams in and out of IC packages.
