Communications IC specialist Gennum to acquire VME and PCI Express interface maker Tundra Semiconductor

March 19, 2009
BURLINGTON, Ontario, 20 March 2009. Data communications semiconductor supplier Gennum Corp. in Burlington, Ontario, is set to acquire system interconnect semiconductor specialist Tundra Semiconductor Corp. in Ottawa for about 86 million Canadian dollars.

BURLINGTON, Ontario, 20 March 2009. Data communications semiconductor supplier Gennum Corp. in Burlington, Ontario, is set to acquire system interconnect aerospace semiconductor specialist Tundra Semiconductor Corp. in Ottawa for about 86 million Canadian dollars.

Tundra executives entered into a definitive agreement Thursday to sell Gennum of all of the issued and outstanding shares of Tundra, a company that provides paste link here bridges, RapidIO switches, VME embedded bridges, and related tools for military system and related applications.

The acquisition will add digital switch and bridge products and functionality to Gennum and builds on Gennum's plan to expand its high-speed signal integrity expertise and solutions.

Gennum's acquisition of Tundra should "accelerate the development of differentiated, high-speed interconnect and signal integrity products," says Franz Fink, president and chief executive officer of Gennum. "We believe that Tundra's strong position with leading communications systems OEMs, particularly in the telecommunications market, as well as its global sales network and foundation of talented employees, will increase Gennum's ability to provide more, high-value products to a broader set of markets and will result in increased opportunities for the combined company to grow its business."

Gennum executives say they also anticipate the transaction will help their company penetrate markets in China and other Asian nations, as well as expand research and development resources.

Gennum expects that buying Tundra will help their the company offer differentiated high-speed mixed-signal and interconnect products for applications such as wireless, wireline infrastructure, industrial, medical, server, and storage equipment with communications protocols such as PCI Express, Serial ATA/SAS, USB, DisplayPort, HDMI, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SONET, and RapidIO.

The transaction is to be completed under the Canada Business Corp. Act. Gennum plans to pay 4.43 Canadian dollars cash for each Tundra common share, or 1.1575 common shares of Gennum Shares, or a combination.

The transaction was unanimously approved by the board of directors of both companies. For more information contact Gennum online at www.gennum.com, or Tundra at www.tundra.com.

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