IXYS to acquire Samsung's 4/8 MCU biz

IXYS Corporation has executed a definitive agreement with Samsung Electronics to acquire Samsung’s 4-/8-bit microcontroller business for approximately $50 million. As part of the agreement, IXYS will receive nearly 80 products, inventories, intellectual property and other assets exclusively related to the 4-/8-bit business. The acquisition is subject to various customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed within four weeks from the date of signing of the definitive agreement. The net impact is expected to be accretive for IXYS in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014. "This acquisition provides increased revenues for our higher gross margin IC business, which includes our wholly-owned subsidiaries, IXYS IC Division and Zilog, a pioneer supplier ofmicrocontrollers," said Dr. Nathan Zommer, Chairman and CEO of IXYS. "We plan to gain market share for our MCU and IC products, and expand our customer base in industrial, medical and consumer applications. The 4-/8-bit products fit with our mixed signal ICs and our power semiconductors, whereby we will be able to offer our customers complete solutions for power management -- from the digital control analog driver ICs to higher power devices. The development of this product portfolio has been a strategic decision as part of our ‘World of IXYS’ marketing and sales initiative.” “Furthermore, with this agreement we e...