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Nordic Semiconductor completes Imagination Technologies acquisition
Tue, 1st Dec 2020
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Nordic Semiconductor has announced it has acquired the Imagination Technologies Ensigma Wi-Fi development team and associated Ensigma Wi-Fi IP tech assets from Imagination Technologies.

Following the acquisition, Nordic Semiconductor plans to expand its in-house wireless technology expertise into Wi-Fi.

The acquisition includes a sizable number of Imagination Technologies employees located in the UK, Sweden, India, and Taiwan.

Of these, around 15% are Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) specialists who will now further strengthen Nordic's existing Bluetooth LE teams as well, the company states.

Nordic CTO Svein-Egil Nielsen says this is ‘a dream come true' for Nordic Semiconductor and its customers, particularly in the smart home market.

Nielsen says, “As the global leader in short range Bluetooth wireless technology and the emerging leader in long-range cellular wireless IoT, there has long been a gap in between which our customers have been asking us to fill.

"And although it won't happen overnight as this an IP acquisition rather than one that comes with Wi-Fi devices ready to sell, we will now be able to add Wi-Fi functionality to future generations of Nordic products."

Nielsen says, “We at Nordic feel extremely fortunate and excited to have found the perfect Wi-Fi team with decades of state-of-the-art Wi-Fi design experience and expertise from whom we can learn all there is to know about Wi-Fi wireless technology."

He says, Nordic is focused on owning every link in the product chain, and with the Imagination Wi-Fi team on-board the company is able to add Wi-Fi hardware and software that Nordic has developed from the ground up.

Nordic director of product management Kjetil Holstad says the acquisition also represents an opportunity to develop IoT technologies and solutions.

Holstad says, “What's just as exciting is the potential synergy between Nordic Semiconductor's low power wireless heritage and the latest low power evolution of Wi-Fi that now allows battery-powered IoT devices.

“We plan to now become an active member of the Wi-Fi Alliance and work with them, as we have and continue to do with multiple other major standards organisations and bodies, to maximise Wi-Fi's low power wireless application potential using our decades of ultra-low power wireless expertise.

“While it is too early to comment in any detail on what the Nordic product implications of this acquisition will be, I can say that we intend to create a development platform and environment that unifies all our wireless technologies."

Holstad says, "One that will bring all the benefits our customers have come to expect from Nordic in terms of lowering technological barriers to entry, removing all unnecessary design complexity, and making it very easy for Nordic customers to add high quality, low power Wi-Fi functionality and features to their Nordic-based products and applications.

Nordic CEO Svenn-Tore Larsen says, “I am very pleased with the competency that the Wi-Fi team following this acquisition now bring to Nordic's wireless IoT capability range. We now plan to rapidly engage with Nordic's new employees."

Larsen also released a public statement welcoming the new employees to Nordic.

He says, “I would like to personally reassure each and every one of [the new employees] that Nordic is one of the best semiconductor companies in the world to work for, has long successfully operated via a large number of global locations, and that we fully intend to make these new employees feel warmly welcome and become an integrated part of our day-to-day operations and people culture.

Imagination Technologies CEO Simon Beresford-Wylie also commented on the acquisition.

He says, “Although Wi-Fi was born in the consumer sector, it is now rapidly gaining traction within the industrial IoT space.

“With Imagination's strong focus on graphics, vision, and AI processing, we feel our Wi-Fi IP division will thrive much better long-term within a company that has wireless connectivity at its center and where it will become a major focus of strategic, technological, and commercial innovation and growth.

"I am extremely happy to have found such a good home for the technology and the team at Nordic Semiconductor: It's a perfect match.