Contact: Tejas Venkatesh
FPGA designer Altera has announced the acquisition of power management chipmaker Enpirion for $134m in cash ($141m including the assumption of debt). The deal should bolster Altera’s FPGA systems by reducing board space and improving power management.
Enpirion makes power system-on-a-chip DC-DC converters that enable greater power densities and lower noise performance compared with their discrete equivalent. The 12-year-old target, which originated as a spinoff of Bell Labs, raised $77m in several rounds of funding from Canaan Partners, Columbia Capital and other firms. Enpirion is expected to generate $20m in revenue this year and $35m next year. The transaction values Enpirion at 7x this year’s sales.
The deal comes nearly a year after wireless semiconductor giant Qualcomm bought programmable power management chipmaker Summit Microelectronics for an estimated $100m. The chip world’s constant pursuit of Moore’s Law results in higher performance, but also creates complexity in power management. These acquisitions are aimed at mitigating that problem.
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