Silicon Labs buys Energy Micro in $115million cash deal

The move is said by Silicon Labs to accelerate growth opportunities in 'energy friendly' embedded solutions. "Silicon Labs and Energy Micro share a complementary vision of a greener, smarter, wirelessly connected world, and the foundation for this combined vision is ultra low power technology enabled by each company's innovative mixed signal design," said Tyson Tuttle, Silicon Labs' president and ceo. "This acquisition combines two proven leaders in nano power mcu and wireless SoC design into a formidable force that will accelerate the deployment of energy-friendly solutions across the internet of things and smart energy industries." "The Energy Micro team is excited to join Silicon Labs," said Geir Førre, president and ceo of Energy Micro, who will become vice president and general manager of Silicon Lab's Energy Friendly Microcontroller and Radio business unit, based in Oslo. "Our unified solutions will give customers a large choice of 32bit microcontroller and sub-GHz, ZigBee and Bluetooth LE connectivity options based on the most energy-efficient ARM platforms in the industry." Tuttle said the internet of things currently generates around 10% of Silicon Labs' revenues. "Given the ramp of products and new wireless technologies," he said, "this acquisition will accelerate revenue growth in this area. The move will also help Silicon Labs to compete more strongly against larger companies." One of the attractions of Energy Micro is its customer base. According to Førre, it now has 725 customers. "Silicon Labs is getting a broad based business, with many of our customers in the early stages of production. These companies will generate a lot of revenue in the next few years."