Freescale acquires SigmaTel for $110 million cash payment

05 May 2008

Mumbai: American firm, Freescale Semiconductor Inc, has acquired SigmaTel, Inc, for approximately $110 million in cash with $3 per outstanding share, the company announced on 30 April.

With the takeover Freescale will merge SigmaTel's analog and mixed-signal IC technologies in its multimedia division, which will  push the company's  business on the growth path in the consumer electronics market. Freescale will also begin to place SigmaTel employees into its engineering, marketing and sales organisations worldwide, according to the merger agreement. 

Semiconductors research and consulting firm In-Stat stated that, the portable digital multimedia market is one of the fastest growing markets for semiconductor solutions. In 2007, with a shipments in excess of 215 million units, portable media players (PMPs) continue to dominate the portable consumer electronics (CE) device market and are expected to grow by 15 per cent per year.

In addition to portable media players, the sale of personal navigation device (PND) is also  expected to grow from  14 million units in 2006 to approximately 56 million units in 2011. PND is a sophisticated portable device that combines stored map data with location data derived from a built-in global positioning system (GPS) satellite receiver.

''SigmaTel's analog and mixed-signal IC technologies complement our successful portfolio of i.MX multimedia applications processors and position our multimedia business as a key growth driver for Freescale,'' said Rich Beyer, chairman of the board and chief executive officer for Freescale Semiconductor.

''With this acquisition, Freescale enhances its technology and talent enabling us to provide our customers worldwide with one of the broadest, most feature rich multimedia portfolios on the market,'' he added.