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e2v in £75million deal
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20/07/2006
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Chelmsford based e2v technologies is buying Atmel Grenoble for approximately £75million. The acquisition, which covers Atmel Grenoble’s image sensor and camera, rf transceiver, aerospace qualified microprocessor and broadband data converter technologies, will add 450 employees, a ccd wafer fab, packaging and test expertise.
Although e2v and Atmel Grenoble share imaging activities, Keith Attwood, e2v’s ceo, said the overlap is relatively small. “It has a well established ccd imaging activity, which has moved towards cmos and is well in advance of what we have. We need to move down this road and this will accelerate our developments.”
Meanwhile, e2v has a strong position in scientific sensors – particularly in aerospace – whilst Atmel Grenoble has strengths in industrial and machine vision, where e2v doesn’t compete. “So the business is almost entirely complementary,” says Attwood.
Where e2v stands to gain significantly is in semiconductor expertise. Attwood said: “Atmel Grenoble has particular knowledge of how to drive and manage sensor technology and a great engineering team that is keen on developing that business, as are we.”
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Author
Vanessa Knivett
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