Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
loosely translated: you might like this on QED more than the Pru sell-side jive. <g>
fwiw, via QED's s-1: "Sales to WebTV, Integrated Device Technology, Inc. (consisting only of royalty revenue), Cisco Systems and Echostar Communications, including sales to their manufacturing subcontractors, accounted for approximately 23%, 20%, 15% and 12%, of our total revenue for the year ended June 30, 1999 and accounted for 34%, 5%, 16% and 14% of our total revenue for the six months ended December 31, 1999."
according to Hoovers: VC firm Weiss, Peck & Greer owns 21%; Integrated Device Technology owns 11%; Cisco has a minority stake.
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Electronic Engineering Times
July 17, 2000, Issue: 1122
Section: News
$2.3 billion acquisition brings architecture for networking -- PMC-Sierra to buy MIPS-processor house QED
Craig Matsumoto and Loring Wirbel
techweb.com
CAMPBELL, CALIF. - Moving to add high-performance programmable, networking and control processing capabilities to its semiconductor lineup, PMC-Sierra Inc. (Vancouver, B.C.) has proposed the $2.3 billion acquisition of MIPS-processor company Quantum Effects Devices Inc.
PMC-Sierra will issue 0.385 share for each share of QED (Santa Clara, Calif.), for a total share value of approximately $2.3 billion, based on PMC-Sierra's closing price last week.
In a conference call with press and analysts, PMC-Sierra chief executive officer Bob Bailey said that his company had needed an open-interface microprocessor core that could scale to speeds of OC-192 and beyond. The MIPS architecture represented the best architecture in embedded RISC camps, Bailey said, and the QED designs represented the best implementation of the MIPS instruction set.
"These guys have processors running in their veins. At PMC-Sierra, we don't have that," Bailey told EE Times.
In fact, Bailey said PMC-Sierra had talked to QED chief executive Tom Riordan during QED's infancy, hoping to strike a partnership between the companies. "It was too early--they were developing their company and their strategies," Bailey said.
Because QED hired many of the original MIPS design team when the company started, the engineers working on next-generation implementations have some of the deepest experience working with the MIPS architecture, Bailey said. Since Cisco is the largest customer of both PMC-Sierra and QED, it gives the two companies experience in working together on one network-oriented account, Bailey added.
Riordan said that the newest processors from his company all feature 64-bit internal instruction and data buses, while users have the choice of using a 32- or 64-bit external interface. While Riordan did not want to comment directly on the plans of NEC Electronics Inc. or Integrated Device Technology Inc. on future MIPS implementations, he said it appeared that no one was close to implementing a 64-bit embedded MIPS architecture similar to that of QED.
QED's RM5200 and RM7000 families of 32- and 64-bit embedded microprocessors are targeted primarily at networking systems. The company recently began sampling the 64-bit RM7000A processor, which runs at 450 MHz and consumes 4 watts.
Comms is key
While PMC-Sierra pledged to continue supporting QED customers in noncommunication accounts such as high-end printers and WebTV systems, Bailey said the key application for the QED architecture clearly will be communications, and that future developments out of QED would continue to be sold to the industry.
"We'll continue to make [QED] merchant market solutions available to everybody," Bailey said.
Assuming the merger is completed, the QED team of more than 100 employees would join PMC-Sierra as a new business unit. Riordan, who is the president and chief executive officer of QED, would report to Bailey as vice president and general manager of the new business unit.
The transaction will be accounted for as a pooling of interests and is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including approval by QED stockholders and the expiration of a regulatory waiting period.
- Patrick Mannion contributed to this report. |
