Intel buys Visteon chip-design team, assets
--From AOL. -- Cooters
DETROIT, June 26 (Reuters) - Chip giant Intel Corp. <INTC.O> said on Monday it had acquired an integrated circuits unit and related assets from auto supplier Visteon Corp. <VC.N>, pushing further into semiconductors outside its core market. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Intel, the No. 1 semiconductor company, said it would hire the 79 employees, mostly chip designers, of Visteon's Ford Microelectronics Inc. unit and assume control of related assets, including a design center in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Ford Microelectronics makes semiconductor chips for the auto industry but will branch beyond that, helping Intel design chips for the wireless cellular communications industry, Intel spokesman Tom Beermann said.
"They have skills in mixed-signal circuit design, taking analog signals and turning them into digital signals and the other way around as well, which is more of an art than a science in many ways, so those kinds of skills are very valuable," Beermann said of the Visteon designers who will joint Intel.
The design center will be designated an Intel design center, combining with an Intel plant in Colorado Springs that makes flash memory chips. It will be part of Intel's Wireless Computing and Communications Group.
Visteon spokesman Craig Miner said the deal allows the Dearborn, Mich.-based auto supplier, which Ford will spin off June 28, to concentrate more on its core business.
15:32 06-26-00 |
