SMSC, a leader in intelligent mixed-signal connectivity solutions, announced that it has officially acquired Symwave. Symwave is a global fabless semiconductor company dedicated to using its proprietary technology, IP and chip design capabilities to provide customers with high-performance analog/mixed-signal connectivity solutions. Symwave's SuperSpeed USB 3.0 family of products and core technologies provides external storage devices, cell phones, media players, camcorders, digital cameras, and other applications that require high-speed data transfer capabilities 10 times faster than USB 2.0 devices. The terminal product adopting Symwave memory controller has already obtained the USB 3.0 authentication of USB-IF in December of 2009 in the industry.

Chris TIne President and Chief Executive Officer of SMSC stated: "SMSC is the market leader in USB solutions and has always stood at the forefront of technology development. They are dedicated to enhancing their strong product portfolio and providing better services to their customers. To create new growth opportunities, to achieve this goal, they invested in Symwave for the first time in 2009, and since then its engineering team has developed the industry's lowest power, highest performance storage products for the SuperSpeed USB market. On the occasion, SMSC strengthens their market position by incorporating Symwave's superior USB 3.0 expertise to take advantage of this new technology shift. They expect this IP technology to be widely used in SMSC's connectivity portfolio."

Yossi Cohen, president and chief executive officer of Symwave, stated: "At the time that Symwave used to be the most difficult financial year, SMSC has always been their strong supporter. It is also their assistance that allows them to complete product development tasks and enable their customers to successfully mass production. They are very pleased to see the win-win results of such employees, shareholders, customers and suppliers. Over two and a half years ago, they foresaw the rise of USB 3.0 technology, and they have successfully launched a number of products and achieved them. They are very proud of this vision."

Symwave has developed several standards-compliant physical layer (PHY), low power analog front end (AFE) cores, integrated circuit (IC) and semiconductor system solutions. These solutions use patented innovations that enable data transfer rates of several Gigabits per second, while offering the benefits of ultra-low power consumption and outstanding electrical performance. In addition, Symwave provides software, reference designs, and a complete development environment for USB storage applications.

Symwave products have been verified by most of the world's leading storage OEMs and currently ship over 1 million units per month. It is expected that this will bring a significant revenue source to SMSC's USB business and speed up SMSC's entry into the USB 3.0 market.

SMSC had previously invested 5.2 million U.S. dollars in Symwave Corporation and obtained a total of 14% of the company's equity; it recently provided 3.1 million U.S. dollars in transitional financing to Symwave. According to the agreement, SMSC also agreed to adopt an earning payment plan (earnout) to provide Symwave shareholders with a cash award based on the status of the 2011 financial goals. Symwave is headquartered in Laguna Nigue, Calif., and has design centers in San Diego, California and Shenzhen, China. SMSC has about 90 employees, of which more than 60 employees are located in Asia. This merger was completed on November 12, 2010.