Huawei acquires UK based Green Photonics Technology Developer CIP

  

Chinese telecommunications business Huawei has increased its investment in UK companies through the acquisition of CIP Technologies.

The move is part of Huawei's strategy to bolster its UK research and development capabilities through the launch of a UK research centre. CIP technologies is the trading name of the Centre for Integrated Photonics. CIP has a rich heritage. It started as BT's fibre optics group. The unit was acquired by Corning in 2000 but the acquisition did not prove a success and in 2002 the group faced closure before being rescued by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA). 

Ipswich-based CIP Technologies is being purchased from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), for an undisclosed amount, and is said by Huawei to 'significantly deepen' its optical research and development capabilities. EEDA is the Regional Development Agency covering the East of England.

CIP has been using its photonic integration expertise to develop compact, more cost-competitive WDM-PON optical line terminal (OLT) and optical network unit (ONU) designs, including the development of an integrated transmitter array.

CIP is also part of several EU Seventh Framework programme R&D projects. These include BIANCHO, a project to reduce significantly the power consumption of optical components and systems, and 3CPO, which is developing colourless and coolerless optical components for low-power optical networks. The technologies of 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit is based on designs with optical functions in parallel; at 400 Gigabit the number of channels only increases. Optical access will also benefit from photonic integration - from board optical sub-assemblies for GPON and EPON to WDM-PON to ultra dense WDM-PON. China is also the biggest fibre-to-the-x (FTTx) market by far.

Huawei's acquisition will not affect CIP's continuing participation in such projects. "For EU framework and other collaborative R&D projects, the ultimate share ownership does not matter so long as it is a research organisation based in Europe, which CIP will continue to be," says Wharton,  the CEO of CIP.


Will Pope, chairman of EEDA, comments: 'This is a tremendous investment success story for EEDA, which acquired CIP in 2003 from its then American owners to save it from closure.

'EEDA's mission was to ensure that a key UK technology company was not lost from the hi tech business base of the East of England.'

Huawei's investment into the UK has been ongoing for ten years, and in 2011 the telecoms company announced plans to double its UK workforce to 1,000 in addition to opening a European design centre for its mobile device business as well as an internal audit centre.

Huawei now has six European R&D centres with the acquisition of CIP

Peter Wharton, chief executive officer of CIP, says: 'We had a good level of interest form potential acquirers, but the management team and staff overwhelmingly backed EEDA's view of the Huawei bid because we believe its research and development capabilities and investment in CIP will lead us to have many more significant achievements in the future.

'The last six months of working closely with Huawei has more than met our expectations, building the foundations for an excellent working relationship.'

(C) M&A