Harmonic Buys Cogent In $8.5 Million Deal

Sunnyvale, Calif.-Harmonic Inc. has purchased Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Cogent Technology Ltd. for about $8.5 million in stock, claiming that Cogent's MPEG-2 (Moving Picture Expert Group) technology will provide Harmonic with a digital-video-stream-processing solution for the satellite, cable and broadcast markets.

Harmonic said it plans to marry Cogent's PCI (peripheral-component interface) multiplexing and demultiplexing platform with its "Stream Processing" solution, which enables network operators to manipulate MPEG-2 video streams in headends before they are flowed to consumer set-top boxes.