TI Buys 802.11 RF Firm Radia

DALLAS -- Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced that it has acquired Radia Communications, Inc. Based in Sunnyvale, California, Radia is a fabless semiconductor company specializing in the development of radio frequency (RF) semiconductor, subsystem, signal processing and networking technologies for 802.11 wireless local area networking (WLAN) multi-band/multi-mode radios. TI’s customers now have a single source for their WLAN media access controller (MAC), baseband and RF, reducing their time to market for 802.11a/b/g products and for broadband, wireless and consumer devices that include 802.11.

“Wi-Fi networking is quickly becoming ubiquitous with opportunities to integrate 802.11 into a wide range of applications including broadband modems, PDAs, cell phones and digital cameras,” said Joseph Crupi, TI vice president and general manager of the Broadband Communications Group. “TI is already capitalizing on our strong portfolio in broadband, wireless and consumer electronics to create new integrated applications. Having increased RF product offerings and engineering expertise in-house will accelerate our integration momentum.”

TI and Radia have already developed joint reference designs for 802.11b/g and 802.11a/b/g products as partners, and have customers signed up for the TI and Radia components in those reference designs. The designs are proven, and the 802.11b/g design is already Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™, as well as a part of the Wi-Fi Alliance 802.11g test bed. TI’s WLAN business is part of the company’s comprehensive portfolio of broadband solutions for cable modems, DSL modems, DSL infrastructure, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) gateways, and VoIP carrier infrastructure. (See http://www.ti.com/wlan.)

“Radia’s products and expertise in 802.11 RF technology and TI’s silicon and software for the 802.11 market are a powerful combination,” said David Fisher, president and CEO of Radia. “TI is known as a world leader in providing semiconductor technology for wireless, broadband and communications markets. Radia's unique RF skills will help TI continue their leadership momentum and provide complete technology to the rapidly growing wireless networking market.”

Radia specializes in RF for 802.11 applications and was founded in 2000 to design RF for communications, networking and wireless systems. Radia has innovative approaches to radio development and Wi-Fi® RF architectures that will enable TI to increase its 802.11 product differentiation. Radia employs approximately 50 people and will become part of TI's Broadband Communications Group. Radia will operate as Texas Instruments Sunnyvale Incorporated. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The charges that will result from this transaction, primarily related to in-process research and development, will be determined in the course of the quarter and were not comprehended in TI’s previously issued financial outlook for the current quarter.

Texas Instruments Inc.