Published: March 21, 2011
Updated: 10:06 a.m.

Broadcom buys Israeli chip developer

By JAN NORMAN
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Irvine chip giant Broadcom Corp. will buy Provigent, an Israeli fabless developer of systems-on-a-chip for broadband wireless for $313 million, according to Broadcom.

Reports of the negotiations circulated earlier this month.

Broadcom Corp. in Irvine will pay $313 million for privately held Provigent in Israel.

Provigent specializes in microwave backhaul equipment. The exponential growth in wireless traffic and transition to 4G are forcing mobile carriers to deal with backhauling data from the cell sites to the core network. Broadcom said that microwave backhaul represents 50% of the solutions in the $5 billion global mobile backhaul sector.

Provigent has raised more than $55 million in venture capital from Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Israel's Pitango.

"Provigent is a unique asset with world-class microwave backhaul technology and strong engineering talent developing innovative and highly integrated semiconductor solutions for the microwave segment," said Broadcom Executive Vice President Rajiv Ramaswami.
Boards for both companies have approved the deal, which Broadcom expects to close by the end of June.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/broa ... owave.html