Xilinx completes $221 million stock purchase of RocketChips

Xilinx completes $221 million stock purchase of RocketChips
By Semiconductor Business News
November 10, 2000 (1:26 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20001110S0034

SAN JOSE -- Xilinx Inc. here today announced completion of a $221 million stock acquisition of privately-held RocketChips Inc. Xilinx said it has issued 3.6 million shares of common stock for ownership of RocketChips, which is a Minneapolis-based supplier of high-speed CMOS mixed-signal transceivers for communications, networking and storage systems.

When Xilinx announced its agreement to acquire RocketChips, the San Jose company said the purchase would enable it to expand the use of field programmable gate arrays (PFGAs) in networking, communications, and storage server systems (see Oct. 3 story). RocketChips technology will be integrated into Xilinx's next-generation FPGAs to serve a total market opportunity worth $6 billion, according to the company.

Xilinx said the transaction will be accounted for under the purchase method of accounting, and it expects to record a one-ti me charge for acquired in-process research and development expenses related to the merger in the current fiscal quarter, which ends Dec. 31.