NXP acquires fabless GPS company

NXP's third acquisition adds GPS to the company’s connectivity portfolio and heavily focuses on the mobile phone space.

By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 12/21/2007

NXP Semiconductors today announced it will acquire GloNav Inc., a Newport Beach, Calif.-based fabless semiconductor company developing single-chip technologies for global positioning systems (GPS) and other satellite navigation systems.

The move, which adds GPS to NXP’s connectivity portfolio, will cost the Eindhoven, Netherlands-based $85 million in cash plus up to $25 million in cash contingent upon GloNav reaching certain revenue and product development milestones over the next two years.

The acquisition mark’s NXP’s third buy since its spin off from Philips in September 2006 and its second buy targeting cellular space. In July, NXP acquired the BlueStreak microcontroller product portfolio from Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas, aiming to become the largest vendor of ARM MCU products. And in February, NXP announced the acquisition of Silicon Laboratories cellular unit for $285 million in cash.

“This is the second major acquisition that we have made this year to strengthen our mobile and personal business unit that quickly adds complementary technologies to our existing portfolio and meets our customers’ demands for innovative products,” Frans van Houten, NXP’s CEO, said in a statement. “Combining GloNav’s GPS expertise with NXP’s FM Radio, Bluetooth, USB and NFC leadership, enables us to offer a broader connectivity suite to the mobile phone market.”

The acquisition brings NXP access to GloNav’s single chip and 90-nm capability and, while NXP noted opportunity in personal navigation devices, is heavily focused on the mobile phone space. Indeed, NXP noted market research that projects approximately 40 percent, or 560 million, of mobile phones will be equipped with the GPS feature by 2010.

“We already turned the cell phone into a multimedia wallet,” van Houten said. “It’s only natural that we also want to use our mobile phones to navigate and to find local goods and services. GPS integration allows us to create these and many more interesting and dynamic features, continuously enriching the cell phone in our pocket.”

GloNav has approximately 50 employees and contractors at locations in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, and Taiwan, that will join NXP’s mobile and personal business unit.

GloNav was formed in 2006 by the spinout of the GPS business of Ceva Inc. and the acquisition of RFDomus Inc., with $16.2 million in funding from Atlantic Bridge Ventures.

The acquisition is expected to close in Q1 2008.