Oak Technology Inc, Sunnyvale designer of multimedia chips, particularly CD-ROM controllers, wants to extend its skills from the fun and games end of the market into the professional office world, and to that end, has reached definitive agreement to acquire Pixel Magic Inc, image processing technology specialist. The privately-held Andover, Massachusetts company will be bought for $10.5m cash, with $5m of that contingent on achievement of pre-set performance criteria over a three year period. Oak expects to write-off $4.5m to $5m of in-process research and development. Oak looks to Pixel to help it move its existing imaging, MPEG and video graphics technologies into the digital office market; it says that Pixel Magic’s PM-2 Jaguar is the first multi-standard image processor to implement the CCITT JBIG Joint Bi-level Imaging Experts Group compression algorithm. JBIG is claimed to enable companies to design office equipment that is 40% to 200% more efficient than systems based on more traditional technology, leading to reduced image storage and transmission costs and lower network bandwidth requirements. JBIG also reduces internal memory requirements in scanners, printers, digital copiers, facsimile machines, optical storage systems, video capture and editing systems, digital cameras and multi-function peripherals. Pixel Magic customers include Fujitsu Ltd, Ricoh Co, Xerox Corp, and Xionics Inc.
