GPS World - January 2008 - (Page 13)

BUSINESS Industry news and developments | GPS | Galileo | GLONASS THE » INDUSTRY WATCH u-Nav Latest GPS Chip Company Acquired F ollowing an ongoing trend of mergers involving GPS tech companies, chip and software supplier u-Nav Microelectronics is being acquired by wireless chip and chipset provider Atheros Communications Inc., based in Santa Clara, California. Atheros announced December 13 that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Irvine, Californiabased u-Nav for $54 million. u-Nav is a privately held fabless semiconductor company specializing in GPS chips and software that enable mobile location-based products and services. The acquisition expands Atheros’ product portfolio of wireless LAN, Bluetooth and personal handyphone system (PHS) technologies to GPS. u-Nav’s product portfolio includes single-die products, several baseband chips, and RFICs, and complete GPS system software applications providing signal acquisition, tracking, data extraction, and GPS navigation. By combining its technology with u-Nav’s, Atheros says it will be able to expand into new markets, supporting multiple radios in a single device for local area networking, personal area networking, and mobile location-based services. Several notable mergers and acquisitions in the GPS chip business took place this past year, presumably because of the explosion of consumer applications. With its acquisition by Atheros, u-Nav is in good company: SiRF acquired Centrality in August 2007, for example, while Broadcom acquired Global Locate in July. u-Nav executives sounded enthusiastic about the merger. “Atheros provides us with a great development environment and the opportunity to significantly expand the adoption of our GPS solutions,” said Greg Winner, formerly chief executive officer of u-Nav, now general manager of Atheros’ GPS business unit. He specifically noted Atheros’ strong PC, networking, and consumer products customer base, which he said will provide a channel for u-Nav to provide its GPS capabilities to customers in conjunction with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth solutions, all from “a single, trusted vendor.” Craig Barratt, Atheros’ president and CEO, agreed producing the three technologies — GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi — will enable Atheros to “deliver an impressive set of wireless solutions” which will increase the value the company brings to its customers. “(U-Nav's) engineering team possesses significant RF design expertise on CMOS technology, which complements Atheros’ design capability and culture,” Barratt added. u-Nav’s 54 Irvine-based employees will become Athewww.gpsworld.com ros employees. Ahteros also acquires u-Nav’s European engineering facility in Tampere, Finland. Once the transaction is closed, Atheros will also take assignment of the patent cross-license agreement already in place between u-Nav and SiRF Technology Inc., the company said. The cash and stock transaction, currently valued at approximately $54 million, includes $15.4 million in cash and 1.28 million shares of Atheros common stock and may include an additional consideration to shareholders if certain defined milestones are achieved, according to Atheros. The company may record a one-time charge for purchased in-process research and development expenses. The amount of that charge, if any, has not yet been determined. The boards of directors of both companies have approved the merger; at press time, the companies were expected to close on the deal by the end of December. Serial Data Recorder Logs RS-232 data to CompactFlashTM solid-state storage without a PC saves power saves hassle saves money DataBridge SDR-CF TM Great for binary and NMEA GPS ! Acumen Instruments Corporation 2625 N. Loop Drive Suite 2200 Ames, IA 50010 www.acumeninstruments.com (515) 296-5366 January 2008 | GPS World 13 http://www.acumeninstruments.com http://www.gpsworld.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of GPS World - January 2008

GPS - January 2008 Contents Out in Front Expert Advice The Money-Go-Round u-Nav Latest Acquisition Apples to Apples Global SBAS 2008 GPS Receiver Survey Advertisers Index & Company Directory The Manufacturer's Road Year of the Who Working Indoor Up and Down Good, Better, Best Marketplace Classifieds Seen + Heard

GPS World - January 2008

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