Quake Technologies , Inc.

Industry:

Electronics, Semiconductor & Semiconductor Equipment

Description

Quake is developing physical layer chips for high-speed optical networking applications."If you look at optical networking at high speeds today, most of the applications are in the telephone or public switch network," says Dan Trepanier, president and CEO of Quake. "We concentrate on the edge of the network - enterprise networking."

He says that Quake's mixed-signal, physical layer chips will enable optical networks to create higher bandwidth for the 10 Gbps and above optical networking market.

"The value-add that Quake brings to the picture is a smaller footprint, lower power consumption and a lower cost solution than what can be done with the existing IP systems from today's leading semiconductor providers," Trepanier says.

In order to tackle competitors and gain market share, Trepanier says Quake needs to execute well on the product development side.

"We're in a space right now where no one has the type of solutions that we're presenting to the market," Trepanier says.

The company's founders, who bring experience from Anadigics [ANAD], Nortel Networks [NT] and Agilent Technologies [A], share a similar vision of the optical networking IP space and decided to launch Quake this past April.

"We are a very seasoned team," Trepanier says. "Most of us have been working in the industry 10 to 15 years or longer. We're putting that experience to bear to come up with the next generation of product."

Trepanier, who spent the last six years as director of marketing at Anadigics, says Quake's chips will be available for sampling by the first quarter of 2001 and production will begin by the end of next year.

In the meantime, the company is expanding its team of engineers, with a focus on ASIC designers with high-speed digital backgrounds.

Currently employing 30 people, the company plans to double that number by the end of next year.

Trepanier believes Quake's team will launch the company toward the independent status it desires.

"Our investors are supportive of our plan to go public and to be a standalone semiconductor company and that's what we're targeting," he says.

Products & Services

fabless semiconductor, physical layer chips, physical layer integrated circuits