Infineon DSL: Past & Future

4:00 PM -- When Infineon Technologies AG (NYSE/Frankfurt: IFX) acquired the Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN) DSL group recently, it picked up a few museum pieces. Take a look:That's the first-ever DSL linecard -- a one-port card! -- from Amati, the company TI acquired in the stone age (1998). The big cylinders are hand-wound transformers.

That card and other Amati artifacts are destined for display cases in the new Infineon DSL lab, housed in the building next door to the previous lab in Milpitas, Calif. In the shot above, you're looking at rows of DSLAMs from pretty much every vendor. Interoperability is a big deal for the chips, and it's an area where TI, with its longer history, could help Infineon. "TI had an advantage there. They worked with very old DSLAMs," says Imran Hajimusa, Infineon VP of broadband access.

What the former TI business lacked, though, was a roadmap; TI had put the division up for sale after its market share started slipping. With its combined forces, Infineon is hoping to give the competition, especially Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM), a run for its money.

Photos by Agnes Toan of Infineon, because my camera's batteries died.

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading