Sherlab's Directories of Electronic Manufacturers: Business News 2004

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October 19. 2004:
Silicon Storage Technology [SST] has acquired G-Plus Inc., a supplier of radio-frequency chips, for $26 million in stock and cash. It is expected that G-Plus' 36 employees, will join SST Communications Corp., a new subsidiary of SST (San Jose). G-Plus is a fabless semiconductor manufacturer specializing in the design of RF integrated circuits for wireless multimedia and broadband networking system applications.
October 11. 2004:
Finisar Corporation acquires Infineon Technologies's Fiber Optics Business Unit based in Berlin.
Under the terms of the agreement, Finisar will issue approximately 110 million shares of Finisar common stock to Infineon. Following the transaction, Infineon will hold a 33 percent equity interest in Finisar. Infineon has also agreed to provide financial assistance to help restructure the Fiber Optics Business Unit's operations and integrate them into Finisar.
Under the acquisition, Finistar will take over Infineon's fiber optic development, manufacturing and marketing activities along with 1,200 employees.
Pending approval of Finisar's shareholders, the transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
Infineon will still hold a 33 percent minority ownership in the fiber optics business. Infineon has agreed to provide Finisar with financial assistance toward the cost of restructuring operations of the fiber optics business unit.
September 28. 2004:
Renesas Technology Corp. announced that it has reached an agreement with STMicroelectronics to take over the SuperH CPU core licensing business of SuperH Inc., a joint venture company with ST. From the beginning of October, Renesas Technology and ST will develop future SuperH architecture-based CPU cores separately.
September 27. 2004:
Celestica Inc. announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to divest its Power Systems business to C&D Technologies in an all-cash transaction, the terms of which were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close within 30 days.
Under the agreement, Celestica will divest its Power Systems assets and transfer its employees to C&D Technologies. The purchase of Celestica's Power Systems business will enable C&D Technologies to offer a greater range of power solutions and deeper breadth of capability to its customers.
In addition, the companies have signed a three - year supply agreement for Celestica to manufacture certain C&D Technologies power products. Under this agreement, Celestica's customers will continue to benefit from Celestica's expertise in supply chain management and high-quality, low-cost manufacturing.
August 25. 2004:
National Semiconductor Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to sell its imaging chip business to Eastman Kodak Co. As part of the agreement, Kodak will acquire certain assets, including intellectual property and equipment. It also plans to hire approximately 50 employees from National's Imaging Business. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The sale is expected to close in the next few weeks.
August 18. 2004:
Cavium Networks Inc., a leader in security processing with the industry's broadest product line, announced the acquisition of BRECIS Communications MIPS based Secure Communication Processor product portfolio.
August 05. 2004:
INTRINSIC Semiconductor Corp., a privately held manufacturer of wide bandgap materials, announced that it is has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Bandgap Technologies, Inc. (Columbia, SC). Bandgap Technologies is a defense contractor and a manufacturer of silicon carbide (SiC) wafer products.
July 27. 2004:
Corning Incorporated announced that it has agreed to sell its frequency control business to Vectron International, Incorporated. Financial details of the transaction are not being disclosed.
Corning Frequency Control (CFC), part of Corning's telecommunications segment, was acquired in 2000 as part of Corning's purchase of Oak Industries. CFC designs and manufactures precision crystal oscillators, resonators, and filters that serve as stable frequency references for a broad range of wireless and wireline communications technologies. Vectron International is an industry veteran in the design, manufacture and marketing of crystal and Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) products.
July 10. 2004:
PLX Technology Inc., the leading supplier of standard I/O interconnect silicon to the communications, server, storage and embedded-control industries, announced that its acquisition of NetChip Technology, Inc. has been approved by PLX stockholders at the company's annual meeting. NetChip Technology, Inc. is a privately held, fabless supplier of high-performance semiconductors based on the Universal Serial Bus (USB) and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) standards.
June 22. 2004:
Cypress Semiconductor Corp. aquires Belgium-based FillFactory NV. Under the terms of the acquisition, Cypress will pay $100 million in cash. The transaction, which is expected to close in the third quarter, will add a possible $25 million to $30 million this year to Cypress' projected revenues of $1.1 billion, according to Ralph Schmitt, executive vice president for sales, marketing and business development. The market for CMOS image sensors growing at the expense of CCDs is expected to increase from $500 million in 2004 to $1.2 billion in 2007.
June 07. 2004:
Zoran Corporation acquires Emblaze Ltd.'s semiconductor business unit for $54.2 million in cash. As part of the deal, Emblaze Mobile, the handset subsidiary of Emblaze will become a 'strategic customer' of Zoran for application processors.
April 22. 2004:
Motorola, Inc.'s Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS) has become Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., a subsidiary of Motorola.
April 08. 2004:
Broadcom Corp. has acquired video compression technology specialist Sand Video Inc. for $77.5 million. Sand Video products support existing MPEG-2 compression standards as well as the ITU-T H.264 standard, also known as advanced video coding (AVC), or MPEG-4 Part 10.
March 25. 2004:
LSI Logic has purchased startup Velio Communications Inc., adding high-speed interconnect, switch fabric and Gigabit Ethernet switching to its product portfolio.
Since selling off its serial interface chip division to Rambus in December, Velio Communications Inc. has been focused on developing switch fabric and storage area networking (SAN) interconnect products. Through the acquisition, LSI hopes to tap Velio's global customer base to expand its reach in the communications sector, said John D'Errico, executive vice president at LSI.
Under terms of the deal, LSI will purchase Velio for approximately $20 million in cash. This transaction is expected to close in April.
March 23. 2004:
ChipExpress, the Structured ASIC leader, announced that it has changed its name to ChipX (and its WEB-Address) in order to more strongly identify with the Structured ASIC market, which is undergoing significant growth and displays tremendous potential.
March 08. 2004:
Xilinx Inc. announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Triscend Corp., a pioneer of configurable embedded microcontroller technology. The merger will bolster Xilinx's rapidly growing presence in the embedded market, bringing R&D talent and complementary technology expertise into the company. The majority of Triscend's 40 employees, currently located at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., will become Xilinx employees.
March 04. 2004:
Rockwell Scientific Company LLC has spun off its CMOS image sensors business unit into a company called Altasens Inc. The spin-off was completed in cooperation with ITX International Holdings Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.), a wholly-owned subsidiary of ITX Corporation of Tokyo. ITX provided capital for the spin-off company. Rockwell Scientific Co. would remained a "substantial stakeholder" in Altasens and would hold two seats on the board of directors, Rockwell said.
February 23. 2004:
Synopsys, Inc. announced two acquisitions that will expand the company's portfolio of standards-based IP. Synopsys and Monolithic System Technology, Inc. (MoSys), a leading provider of high-density SoC embedded memory solutions, announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for Synopsys to acquire MoSys in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $432 million (approximately $346 million net of cash). The acquisition is expected to close before the end of May 2004. In addition, Synopsys announced that has acquired Accelerant Networks, a privately held company providing a highly efficient technology for high-speed serial interfaces.
February 03. 2004:
Pioneer Corp. has acquired NEC Corp.'s PDP business. The deal makes Pioneer the world's largest PDP maker with annual capacity of over 1 million units in 2005. Pioneer owns three PDP lines for 43- and 50-inch panels with a total capacity of 250,000 units a year. The fourth line currently under construction will double its capacity by next January. Pioneer was considering building the fifth PDP line, but has chosen to purchase an existing plant. NEC has been supplying PDP panels to Sony Corp., which competes directly with Pioneer in the PDP TV market. After the merger, Pioneer will take over the OEM panel supply operation and will continue supplying panels to rival Sony.
January 28. 2004:
Processor design licensing company ARM Holdings PLC is acquiring Triscend Corporation for $13.2 million in cash with the potential for further cash payments depending on future performance. Triscend is a developer of configurable system-on-chip devices and customizable microcontrollers. The acquisition also marks ARM's first move toward becoming a fabless chip company.
Archived News Pages:
Business News 2003
Business News 2002
Business News 2001
Business News 2000
Sorry, because of a major crash we lost the News Files from July 21 2005 until February 1 2007. We couldn't recover the datafiles.