Cisco released a statement that it will soon be buying the optical-semiconductor business Luxtera for about $660 million. Cisco will be utilizing the silicon photonics for future enterprise data centers, webscale and networking gear. The photonic technology is being considered essential as the traffic volume increases the networks need to expand.

David Goeckeler an Executive Vice President and General Manager for the Networking and Security at Cisco “Optics will be the fundamental technology that will be driving the networking business. With Luxtera, Cisco customers will be able to experience the most secured, efficient and fastest network in the world.”

Cisco had recently predicted that the IP traffic worldwide will rise by three times by 2022 and we would have more than 4.8 billion internet users. After the deal is signed by the Cisco and Luxtera, the employees from the Luxtera will work on Cisco’s optic business.

Luxtera develops silicon-photonics technology that converts the electronic information into photons and carries it over the fiber optic cables directly using the semiconductor medium. The transfer speed is increased for the data and equipment’s are required to convert the information into different forms.

Luxtera can make a high volume of such chips that is currently lacking in the industry of networking. Apparently, Cisco had to compete with Intel and Broadcom to acquire the Luxtera.