Consolidation hits wireless chip makers

The quest for scale and intellectual property appear to be motivating chip companies to consolidate, with three transactions announced this week.
Qualcomm buys RF specialist
Qualcomm has purchased Austin’s Black Sand, which makes power amplifiers for mobile devices. The purchase price was not disclosed. In the past, Black Sand has sold product to Japan’s Murata, which makes RF front-end chipsets, and now the company’s technology will likely be integrated with Qualcomm’s low power front-end chipsets.
Qualcomm entered the RF front-end market in early 2013, leading to speculation that chipmakers who specialize here might lose market share. Two of those companies, RF Micro Devices and Triquint, joined forces at the beginning of 2014. Like Black Sand, Triquint specialized in power amplifiers.
RF front-end chipsets enable mobile devices to support multiple frequency bands, a feature that is fast becoming table stakes for high-end smartphones. Manufacturers save time and money by sourcing a single chip that can support many bands instead of creating multiple versions of a phone for various markets.
Audience to buy indoor GPS specialist
Audience, which makes audio and video processors for mobile devices, will spend $41 million to acquire Sensor Platforms, which makes software to interpret sensor data. Audience develops its own software in this area already, but clearly wanted to add Sensor Platforms’ intellectual property to its own. Analyst Will Strauss of Forward Concepts notes that indoor GPS is one of Sensor Platforms’ specialties.
“Sensor Platforms … is a pioneer in indoor navigation (some would call it indoor GPS),” said Strauss. “That could nicely tie in with Audience’s audio/speech recognition technology for verbal directions to a particular store in the mall or a particular office in a building.”
Avago to buy PLX PCI Express
The biggest chip merger announced so far this week is Avago’s $309 million purchase of PLX PCI Express. Avago makes analog semiconductor devices with a focus on III-V based products and complex digital and mixed signal CMOS based devices. The company addresses four markets: enterprise storage, wired infrastructure, wireless communications and industrial applications. PLX PCI Express specializes in chip solutions for enterprise data centers.
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