By Nitin Dahad, EETimes (January 31, 2020)
With UWB expected to significantly proliferate as a result of the Apple effect, the Irish fabless chip company was an attractive acquisition target
When we said in December that the rebirth of ultra-wideband (UWB) technology was one of the pivotal events of 2019 that would impact 2020, we didn’t expect the first big acquisition of the year in the chip industry would be a UWB chip developer.
But that’s just want happened this week. Decawave, a fabless semiconductor company that develops UWB technologies, chips and modules, has been acquired for a reported $400m by Qorvo, a developer of radio frequency (RF) ICs.
Decawave said the acquisition will advance market penetration of IR-UWB (impulse radio UWB), which enables more precise location information compared to other wireless technologies such as GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. IR-UWB technology enables accurate indoor location services, secure communications, context aware user interfaces and advanced analytics.