More chipset suppliers to tie up with Taiwan-based IC design houses

More chipset suppliers to tie up with Taiwan-based IC design houses

Cage Chao, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Friday 20 June 2014]

More chipset suppliers are likely to tie up with Taiwan-based IC design houses in order to tap retail channels as well as to expand their ecosystem in China, according to industry sources.

Microchip Technology announced a deal in late May to acquire all of outstanding shares of Taiwan-based ISSC Technologies, a provider of low power Bluetooth and advanced wireless solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) market, at NT$143 per share (approximately US$4.74) through a tender offer.

The transaction represents a total equity value of about NT$9.9 billion, and a total enterprise value of about NT$8.9 billion, after excluding ISSC’s cash and investments on its balance sheet of NT$1 billion, said the companies.

Image Sub, a subsidiary of Exar Corporation, also announced recently that it will purchase the stock of Integrated Memory Logic (iML) at NT$91 (US$3.04) per share, or a 34.62% premium, with the merger slated for completion on September 19.

More notably, chipset vendor Intel has made equity investments in a number of Taiwan-based IC design houses, including touch controller supplier Egalax-empia Technology (EETI), flash card controller vendor Skymedi and SoC solution provider Aspeed Technology.

The vertical integration of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, the easy access to China’s market and supply chains by Taiwan makers and the ability of Taiwan-based companies to engage in international cooperation projects are the main attractions for international chipset vendors to team up with IC design houses in Taiwan, commented the sources.

 

About bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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