SiRF Technology Holdings, a leading provider of GPS-enabled silicon and premium software location platforms, announced that it has completed its acquisition of Centrality Communications, a privately held developer of navigation processor solutions for mobile navigation devices based in Redwood City, Calif.
The transaction closed on August 6, 2007. Under the terms of the agreement, SiRF acquired all the outstanding shares of Centrality capital stock in exchange for approximately 8.1 million shares of SiRF’s common stock, which includes common stock underlying assumed equity awards, and $110 million in cash.
Originally announced on June 21, 2007, the acquisition of Centrality will enable SiRF to deliver very powerful, end-to-end, multifunction location platforms employing sophisticated system-on-chip (SoC) technology to location-enable a broad range of new devices and services.
It will expand SiRF’s engineering capabilities to deliver cost effective products that will address the needs of emerging convergence mobile devices in the portable navigation, automotive, and consumer markets. The acquisition also helps SiRF customers, operators and content partners to add more value to their offerings and bring their products to market faster while enhancing the consumer experience.
“With the addition of the Centrality multifunction SoC platform and multimedia expertise, SiRF is well positioned to go beyond GPS and provide a very attractive value-added product portfolio that addresses the emerging price performance and functionality needs of our target markets,” said Dr. Michael Canning, president and chief executive officer of SiRF. “We believe this acquisition strengthens our location platform strategy, and enhances our ability to continue to deliver innovative multifunction solutions that set new standards for features and value.”
With its primary focus on portable navigation-infotainment devices, Centrality has developed a range of platforms centered on enhancing the location, information and entertainment experience of consumers. Based on a proprietary dual-core processor architecture, these SoCs have integrated GPS, DSP, graphics, and multimedia accelerators, providing breakthrough performance while achieving lower cost. The Centrality Atlas family of navigation processors focuses on high performance solutions for the value-sensitive navigation infotainment systems (NIS) market, while the Titan platform is designed for the highest end differentiable solutions.
