IXYS buys GaAs IC maker Microwave Technology
MwT has about 50 employees, and had annual revenues of about $6 million in its fiscal year ended March 31, 2003.
IXYS will issue approximately 800,000 shares of IXYS common stock, which values the deal at around $8 million. As a result of the merger, MwT is now a wholly owned subsidiary of IXYS.
“MwT fits our strategy of expanding our RF technology and products, as part of our new IXYS RF initiative,” said Nathan Zommer, CEO of IXYS Corporation.
“MwT has earned a reputation for high performance and high quality GaAs devices and active microwave components, based on its proprietary technology. We see great benefits in our continuing to serve the wireless telecom market and the medical market, and to penetrate more into the defense and aerospace markets,”
Zommer says that IXYS, a power semiconductor specialist, has recently penetrated the RF market, mainly with silicon-based devices. “The GaAs technology that MwT owns allows us to penetrate the higher frequency range all the way to about 30 GHz,” said Zommer.
IXYS, a publicly traded company (ticker symbol: SYXI) headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, reported record revenues of $40.1 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2003, an increase of 46.1% over the $27.4 million reported for the same quarter in the prior fiscal year, and a 6.0% sequential increase from $37.8 million in the March 2003 quarter. The company also reported a net profit of $443,000 for the June 2003 quarter.
About MicroWave Technology
MwT is a merchant manufacturer of GaAs FETs, PHEMTs and MMICs, utilizing proprietary vapor phase epitaxial processes and quarter micron recessed gate technology, which result in highly linear, low phase noise devices with power outputs ranging from 10 mW to 5 W. These devices, sold as chips or in packages, find wide use in the amplification of signals from 100 MHz to 40 GHz in the transmission or reception of information in wireless telecommunications systems.
Recent, very high frequency offerings aimed at Broadband Access markets include highly efficient, ultra linear, power PHEMTs (+38 dBm IP3 for 2 watt of DC power in a balanced module) and ultra-low, phase noise GaAs FETs (-118 dBc @ 100 kHz offset in a 17.5 GHz +15 dBm DRO).
Employing thin-film hybrid microcircuit construction, MwT also produces and markets various standard modular amplifier products to 26 GHz. By taking advantage of the low intermodulation distortion characteristics of its GaAs FETs, the company has enjoyed success with its product line of small internally matched modular surface mount transmit and receive amplifier modules aimed at multi-carrier and/or digitally modulated (high linearity) wireless telecommunications systems.
Principal applications are as receiver front ends and as driver or picocell output amplifiers in cellular, PCS and WLL basestation transmission at 0.9, 1.9, 2.5, and 3.5 GHz. New products have extremely low input and output return loss providing ease of gain insertion in highly critical high linearity power amplifier cascades.
