Cortina Systems

Cortina Systems, Inc. was a fabless semiconductor company established in 2001 by serial entrepreneur Amir Nayyerhabibi, who also served as its President and CEO. Nayyerhabibi, with a background in engineering from the University of Illinois and management roles at Intel, SGI/MIPs, and Cisco, co-founded other successful ventures like StratumOne Communications and AuroraNetics, both acquired by Cisco.

Operating as a fabless entity, Cortina outsourced all its semiconductor manufacturing, focusing its internal resources on research and development. The company developed and supplied intelligent integrated circuits for the broadband communications sector, catering to core, metropolitan, enterprise, and digital home network markets. Its business model centered on providing advanced communications semiconductor solutions to a customer base that included tier-one networking original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Over its history, Cortina made several strategic acquisitions to broaden its technology portfolio, including the purchase of Intel's optical-networking components business in 2006, Azanda Network Devices, ImmenStar, and Storm Semiconductor.

Cortina's product lines were extensive, covering network connectivity and bandwidth delivery from the core to the home network. The portfolio included Ethernet MACs, transport framers for various speeds up to 100 Gbit/s, SONET/SDH framers, and passive optical network (PON) system-on-chip (SoC) solutions. These products addressed needs for performance, density, and flexibility in network infrastructure. A notable milestone was the joint announcement of the Interlaken protocol with Cisco Systems in 2006. In October 2014, Inphi Corporation acquired Cortina's High-Speed Interconnect and Optical Transport business lines for approximately $131 million. The acquisition excluded Cortina's Access and Digital Home business, which was set to continue as an independent entity.

Keywords: fabless semiconductor, integrated circuits, broadband communications, optical transport, networking interconnects, Amir Nayyerhabibi, Inphi acquisition, Ethernet MAC, OTN Framer, SONET/SDH, PON SoC, carrier infrastructure, network-on-a-chip, high-speed networks, digital home, enterprise networking, communications semiconductor, SerDes, PHY, transport framers