Oclaro backs ClariPhy in $24 million VC round

The financing includes new strategic investors — Oclaro Inc., a provider of optical communications and laser components, and multiple telecom OEMs. All ClariPhy's existing venture capital investors participated in this round, including Norwest Venture Partners, Allegis Capital, Onset Ventures, and Pacific General Partners.

ClariPhy, founded in 2002, said it would use the money to develop and deliver a single-chip MXSP that increase an optical network's reach and tolerance to impairments such as chromatic dispersion, polarization-mode dispersion and fiber nonlinearity, while reducing cost of ownership for both OEMs and service providers.

The company's line of 10G, 40G and 100G networking chips are based on advanced MXSP schemes such as Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation (MLSE) and Coherent Detection that approach the limits of achievable performance. ClariPhy's implementation of these schemes in 40-nm single-chip CMOS enables equipment designers to reduce cost and power by integrating multiple system functions into customized System on Chip (SoC) solutions.

Driving demand for these MXSP ICs is the growing adoption of a variety of new broadband services from video and social networking to voice-over-IP and cloud computing. With analysts predicting that network traffic will grow by more than 40 percent annually over the next five years, network operators are rapidly migrating from 10G to 40G transmission rates and beyond.

"Our new partnerships with Oclaro and others open up exciting opportunities to gain insight into customer problems, integrate our innovative technology into new ASIC and SoC applications, and generate significant new revenue streams," said Paul Voois, cofounder and CEO of ClariPhy, in a statement.

Oclaro, a supplier of optical components for 40G regional and metro networks, will use ClariPhy's technology to expand into the 100G Coherent Long Haul and Ultra Long Haul markets. "As optical networks rapidly move toward 100G, the importance of DSP and mixed-signal ICs increases," noted Alain Couder, CEO of Oclaro, in the same statement.

In 2009 Oclaro used ClariPhy's MLSE IC to boost the performance of its TL9000 transponder for 10G networks.