Samsung Corporation (KSX:830) will likely make its first acquisition in Israel in a few months. The electronics giant has been negotiating to acquire CMOS imaging solutions start-up TransChip Inc. for a sum reported to be as much as $100 million.
TransChip chairman and CEO Dr. Viktor Ariel founded the company in 1999. He was joined by former employees of IBM, Intel and Zoran Corp. (Nasdaq: ZRAN) who had developed a Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) for imaging solutions for mobile telephones. The most important result of the processors is cheaper camera-phones.
The potential of the technology has attracted investors such as Libit Signal Processing cofounders Ehud (Udi) Weinstein and Ofir Shalvi. They sold Libit to Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE:TSX) for $360 million. Libit then became the Israeli R&D center of Texas Instruments.
TransChip has been collaborating for years with Analog Devices Inc. (NYSE:ADI), Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), Ceva Inc. (Nasdaq:CEVA); LSE:CVA) and other companies to jointly develop imaging processors for videos and mobile devices. Analog Devices founder and chairman Ray Stata and Qualcomm founder and chairman Prof. Andrew Viterbi both serve on TransChips’ board after investing in the company. Cadence Design Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CDNS) made its first investment in the company four years ago.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on February 27, 2007
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2007