Texas Instruments Inc has agreed to acquire Power Trends Inc, a company which makes power management chips for use alongside digital signal processors, microprocessors, and other devices situated on circuit boards. TI will pay approximately $145m in exchange for all the shares of privately held Power Trends, which is based in Warrenville, Illinois. TI says the acquisition, in combination with its analog silicon technologies, will enable it to offer customers modular systems using plug-in powers supplies.
As high performance integrated circuits become more complex and require higher current at lower voltages, plug-in power supplies are becoming more popular, says TI. Traditional centralized power management gives way to localized power regulation located on individual circuit boards close to the device being powered. TI estimates that the demand for plug-in-power products will grow to $1bn within five years.
Power Trends claims to have hundreds of customers worldwide, including Cisco Systems Inc, IBM Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co. Its products are mostly used for data communications, computer systems and industrial segment products. The company has approximately 230 staff. It will be operated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of TI.
In July, TI agreed to acquire Unitrode Corp, a manufacturer of semiconductors for managing battery life and power supply in mobile electronic devices, in a $1.2bn stock deal. TI wanted Unitrode’s power supply controller business and battery management circuits monitoring tools. It is showing increasing interest in the analog chip side of its business of late, the total available market for which Dataquest estimates was worth $21.6bn in 1998, with a projected growth rate of more than 15% for 1999. The power management segment alone was worth $2.2bn in 1998, and is expected to reach $4.1bn by 2002.
