Murata Completes Acquisition of Peregrine
Acquisition will 'speed the industry's transition to an integrated, all-CMOS RF front-end'.
Murata Electronics North America has acquired all outstanding shares of Peregrine Semiconductor. The cash transaction paid the holders of Peregrine common shares $12.50 per share.
With the close of this acquisition, Murata gains Peregrine's strong intellectual property portfolio, which contains over 180 filed and pending patents. Peregrine will continue to market its high-performance, integrated RF solutions under the Peregrine brand, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Murata Electronics North America.
Peregrine was formed as a fabless company in 1988. Since then its founding team have been perfecting UltraCMOS, a patented form of silicon-on-insulator (SoI) technology, designed to deliver the performance needed to solve tough RF challenges, such as linearity. Peregrine's SoI products are challenging GaAs transistors in mobile phones: its switches have already driven the demise of GaAs pHEMTs, and the technology is now competing with the GaAs HBTs used in power amplifiers
"Today, we deepen our existing partnership and officially welcome Peregrine Semiconductor to the Murata family," says Norio Nakajima, executive vice president, director of communication business nnit of Murata. "With this acquisition, we combine Murata's world-leading mobile RF module capabilities with Peregrine's best-in-class RF products. We're eager to leverage Peregrine's innovations, such as the industry's first reconfigurable RF front-end system UltraCMOS Global 1, and expand the Murata business into all the markets that Peregrine currently offers RF solutions. This acquisition further defines our stance as an 'Innovator in Electronics'."
"After years of a successful partnership, we're happy to become a part of the Murata team, the world's leading RF module and filter provider," says Jim Cable, president and CEO of Peregrine Semiconductor.
"Murata already has deep relationships and trust built in all of our target markets. We believe we can offer their customer base exciting new RF capabilities. With the reach of Murata products and the power of our UltraCMOS technology, we believe we will change the course of RF history. In the case of mobile, it will speed the industry's transition to an integrated, all-CMOS RF front-end. Together, we're looking forward to accomplishing great things."
