Let's hope RF Micro Devices Inc.'s latest acquisition, the $900 million agreement to acquire Sirenza Microdevices announced Monday, fares better than the mobile chipmaker's last major deal.
RF Micro all but shut down its dealmaking after March 2005, when it announced that it was exiting the wireless LAN chip business. The news amounted to an admission that its $133 million acquisition three years earlier of WLAN startup Resonext Communications Inc. was an abject failure.
Certainly, the WLAN market was a tough one at the time, and the Sirenza deal is much different from the Resonext acquisition. RF Micro is acquiring an established supplier of radio frequency chips to a broad swath of growing markets. But investors are sure to watch this deal closely to make sure RF Micro hasn't once again bitten off more than it can chew. —Olaf de Senerpont Domis
See press release from RF Micro Web site
See March 2005 article from TheDeal.com
Tags: networking, wireless, deals, m&a, mergers
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