Unicorn Investment Bank acquires 75% equity stake in Open-Silicon

December 24, 2007 -- Unicorn Investment Bank B.S.C. (c) (Unicorn) announces the investment of US$190 million to acquire a 75% equity stake in Open-Silicon, Inc. (Open-Silicon), a market leader in chip design and outsourced manufacturing services based in Milpitas, California. Unicorn is partnering with Open-Silicon’s senior management team to fulfill the company’s next phase of growth, which includes global expansion.

Established in 2003 by the founders of Intel Microelectronics, a subsidiary of Intel, Open-Silicon designs and manufactures Application Specific Integrated Chips (ASICs) for a broad group of clients in the consumer electronics and telecom sectors. The company’s turnkey semiconductor service offerings allow clients to outsource all services required to deliver high quality semiconductor solutions that they would otherwise need to develop internally at a very high cost.

Commenting on the acquisition, Aamir Khan, Managing Director of Global Private Equity at Unicorn, said: “Unicorn has been following developments at Open-Silicon with interest for several years. The company has managed to build a differentiated and successful business model and is a clear market leader in the fabless space. We believe that semi-conductors will be the cement of future technological infrastructure growth. We look forward to working with Open-Silicon’s highly experienced and respected management team to support the company’s future global growth.”  

Open-Silicon currently has a presence in six locations in the US, the United Kingdom, India and Taiwan as well as manufacturing partners in Taiwan, Korea and China and a testing facility in Malaysia. The company’s planned expansion strategy combines growth both within its core US market and internationally where it plans to establish new design centers and material sourcing operations. Furthermore, the company plans to target synergistic acquisition opportunities.

Dr. Naveed Sherwani, Co-Founder, CEO and President of Open-Silicon, commented: “We are delighted to partner with Unicorn to fulfill our business plan and future growth strategies. Open-Silicon has established a solid reputation for providing cost-effective, predictable and reliable custom microchip solutions, and our partnership with Unicorn will help support the next phase of growth. We are excited at the opportunity that Unicorn’s involvement offers to our customers, partners and suppliers.”

ABOUT OPEN-SILICON

Open-Silicon is a fabless Application Specific Integrated Circuit (“ASIC”) company that was founded to bring cost-effectiveness, predictability, and reliability back to the ASIC market. The Company designs and manufactures custom microchips for products used in consumers’ day-to-day lives in the Cellular Wireless, Set-top Box, Digital Home, Computer, and Network Communication industries.
Open-Silicon’s turnkey services include product definition, design engineering, wafer fabrication, package and assembly, test engineering and logistics. The company delivers custom microchips to the market with unprecedented predictability and reliability, allowing clients to create differentiated products with confidence in their ability to meet time to market needs.
Open-Silicon is led by a world class management team, each with an average of 21 years of semiconductor experience.  The company has over 100 design wins, over 55 unique customers and has shipped over 30 million parts since inception. The Company is based in Milpitas, California and has over 100 employees (75% of them engineers) in 7 locations around the world.

ABOUT UNICORN INVESTMENT BANK

Founded in 2004 and based in Bahrain, Unicorn Investment Bank B.S.C. (c) (Unicorn) is an Islamic investment bank, with an international presence in the United States, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Turkey. Unicorn is built around five core business lines: Private Equity, Asset Management, Corporate Finance, Capital Markets & Treasury and Strategic Mergers & Acquisitions. To date, Unicorn has advised, structured and successfully placed deals with a total value of over US$3 billion. The Bank has achieved consistent growth since its inception and has received widespread industry recognition for excellence and vision.