Silicon Labs to acquire Energy Micro

USA & NORWAY: Silicon Labs, a leader in high-performance, analog-intensive, mixed-signal ICs, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Energy Micro AS.

Based in Oslo, Norway, the late-stage privately held company offers the industry’s most power-efficient portfolio of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) and is developing multi-protocol wireless RF solutions based on the industry-leading ARM Cortex-M architecture.

Energy Micro’s energy-friendly MCU and radio solutions are designed to enable a broad range of power-sensitive applications for the Internet of Things (IoT), smart energy, home automation, security and portable electronics markets.

This strategic acquisition accelerates Silicon Labs’ growth opportunities and positions the company as the foremost innovator in energy-friendly embedded solutions. The growth of the IoT market, coupled with continued deployment of smart grid and smart energy infrastructure, is driving strong demand for energy-efficient processing and wireless connectivity technology to enable connected devices in which low-power capabilities are increasingly important.

Industry experts predict that the number of connected devices for the IoT will top 15 billion nodes by 2015 and reach 50 billion nodes by 2020.

Energy Micro’s portfolio complements Silicon Labs’ 32-bit Precision32 MCU, Ember ZigBee and sub-GHz wireless products and targets a growing embedded market. The acquisition greatly expands Silicon Labs’ MCU portfolio, adding nearly 250 ARM-based EFM32 Gecko MCU products ranging from extreme-low-power, small-footprint MCUs based on the ARM Cortex-M0+ core  to higher-performance, energy-friendly MCUs powered by the Cortex-M4 core capable of DSP and floating-point operations.

The acquisition is expected to enhance Silicon Labs’ radio portfolio with the addition of Energy Micro’s ultra-low-power EFR Draco radio products. These versatile wireless transceivers and system-on-chip (SoC) devices will support frequency bands ranging from sub-GHz to 2.4 GHz and multiple standard and proprietary protocols including Bluetooth Low Energy (LE), 6LoWPAN, ZigBee, RF4CE, 802.15.4(g), KNX, ANT+ and additional protocols.