Trident acquires NXP Semiconductor's TV and STB IC business in exchange of Trident's stocks

HD video processing chip vendor Trident Micro Systems has inked a deal with NXP Semiconductor to own the NXP's Television and Set Top Box (STB) semiconductor chip business. In return, NXP gains newly issued shares of Trident common stock equal to 60% of the total shares outstanding post-closing, including approximately 6.7 million shares that NXP Semiconductor will purchase at a price of $4.50/share, resulting in cash proceeds to Trident of $30 million.

Sylvia Summers, President and CEO of Trident comments, "As the fragmented consumer IC market continues to consolidate, the ability to leverage IP across multiple segments is becoming increasingly important due to the R &D investments necessary to deliver leading-edge innovation,"

The consumer semiconductor IC market is becoming innovation driven due to the emerging concept of convergence communications, where consumer equipment/gadget is more a computing and communication driven rather than just plain audio/video signal handling. Even for handling high definition audio and video signal, the systems need high MIPS rated SoC class processors with interfaces such as HDMI1.4, USB3.0 and wireless interfaces.

Adding advanced interfaces at early stage matters a lot for the digital TV chip's success. So here, NXP with its roots strong in nearly every segment of consumer chips and Trident's advanced processors make a powerful match.

Trident has also recently acquired selected assets of the frame rate converter (FRC), demodulator and audio product lines of Micronas Semiconductor Holding AG.