Looking to expand its capabilities in building embedded processors,
Xilinx Monday said it would purchase Triscend Corp.
for
an undisclosed amount.
San Jose, Calif.-based Xilinx, which is the largest maker of
programmable
microchips, said the merger will bring in both R&D talent and
complementary
technology to the table. The majority of Triscend’s 40 employees,
currently
located at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., are
expected
to become Xilinx employees.
Known for its field-programmable microprocessors (FPGA)
such as its “Virtex-II Pro” family, Xilinx’s embedded system history
has
been defined by a library of IP cores (over two hundred cores),
application/reference designs, internal and third party provided tools,
support for MonteVista Linux, WindRiver VxWorks, QNX Neutrino and
development boards.
During its quarterly update earlier this month, Xilinx said it
is also seeing strong demand for its Spartan-3 family and projected its sales should surpass $1 million for the quarter.
Xilinx sells primarily to manufacturers in the telecommunications,
computer, aerospace, industrial control, and networking markets.
Company execs are hoping the acquisition will give it some added punch when approaching the burgeoning embedded processor sector.
“The significant talent and technology at the core of Triscend will
strengthen our efforts in the embedded processing space, accelerating
future
development of embedded solutions and speeding our market ramp in this
important emerging market,” Erich Goetting, vice president and general
manager of the Advanced Product Division at Xilinx, said in a
statement.
Triscend is known for its configurable system-on-chip (CSoC) devices
and
customizable microcontrollers, which are used in a variety of
applications,
such as industrial controls, security and consumer electronics. The
company
said its technology can be combined with programmable logic,
microprocessors, memory and buses to create single-chip customized
solutions. Xilinx said it will capitalize on those embedded
technologies as
well as Triscend’s FastChip development software and integrate it with
its
own Platform Studio and Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK).
The acquisition is also a boon to IBM , which is
near the
end of a two-year, multi-million dollar manufacturing contract with Xilinx.
Pending regulatory approval, Xilinx said the Triscend transaction
should
resolve by April 3. Although financial details were not disclosed, the
acquisition represents less than one percent of the total assets of
Xilinx
as of the end of our fiscal third quarter ending January 3, 2004.
