To expand into additional high-growth analog sectors, Intersil Corp. of Irvine, Calif., has inked a definitive agreement to acquire Elantec Semiconductor for approximately $1.4 billion. This acquisition will enable Intersil, a major supplier of wireless networking chips, to enter the optical storage and LCD flat-panel display markets.
Based in Milpitas, Calif., Elantec makes high-end laser drivers for CD read/write and DVD recordable applications, including leading-edge blue laser drivers, and captures about 70% of that market. Plus, it offers a variety of high-performance analog and power-management ICs for flat-panel displays, as well as high-performance operational amplifiers for video and ADSL applications.
While this acquisition brings synergistic growth in the high-performance analog arena, there will be some overlap of products in the power-management segment. However, Intersil expects this overlap to be around 5%. Intersil hopes to complete the Elantec acquisition by the end of this quarter.
For more details, go to www.intersil.com.
