European Commission clears StarCore DSP joint venture

European Commission clears StarCore DSP joint venture
By Semiconductor Business News
September 30, 2002 (9:52 a.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020930S0008

BRUSSELS, Belgium --- The European Commission, the administrative arm of the 15-nation Europrean Union, has given its permission for the formation of a proposed joint venture company, StarCore LLC, between Agere, Infineon and Motorola. StarCore is being set up to develop and license digital signal processing architecture and cores on behalf of the three companies.

The European Commission said that its investigation showed that there are limited overlaps both horizontally and vertically between StarCore LLC and its parents and that the transaction does not pose competition concerns.

In 1998 Agere and Motorola formed the StarCore Joint Design Center to design DSP cores that would be developed into DSP chips marketed only by Agere and Motorola. Motorola and Agere will now bring this DSP-related know-how and intellectual property rights into StarCore LLC.

Similarly, Infineon developed its own Carmel DSP cores design and licensing business and will now contribute this business to StarCore LLC. In connection with this transfer of IP rights, the companies are set to transfer existing design teams in the U.S. and Israel to StarCore LLC.