Qorvo, a leading provider of radio frequency solutions, announced today that the company has acquired United SiliconCarbide (UnitedSiC), a leading manufacturer of silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors, located in Princeton, New Jersey. According to reports, the acquisition of United Silicon Carbide will expand Qorvo's influence to the fast-growing electric vehicle (EV), industrial power supply, circuit protection, renewable energy and data center power supply markets. According to reports, after the acquisition, UnitedSilicon Carbide will become part of Qorvo's Infrastructure and Defense Products (IDP) business, led by Dr. Chris Dries, who was formerly President and CEO of United Silicon Carbide, and is now Qorvo Power Device Solutions The general manager of the scheme.
Philip Chesley, President of Qorvo IDP, said: "UnitedSiC has joined our IDP business unit, which has significantly expanded our market opportunities in high-power applications. This acquisition enables Qorvo to provide high-value, first-class smart power solutions, including power conversion, Motion control and circuit protection applications."
Dr. Dries said: “As part of Qorvo, our team is excited to expand our SiC product portfolio and continue to build our business at speed and scale, striving to accelerate the adoption of SiC with the industry’s highest performance equipment. Our SiC technology, plus Qorvo’s complementary programmable power management products and world-class supply chain capabilities enable us to provide superior power efficiency levels in advanced applications."
United Silicon Carbide's product portfolio now covers more than 80 SiC FET, JFET and Schottky diode devices. Based on a unique cascode configuration, the recently released 4th generation SiC FET is rated at the industry-leading 750V and 5.9 milliohm RDS(on), enabling the Important new levels of SiC efficiency and performance, as well as telecom/server power supplies, variable speed motor drives and solar photovoltaic (PV) inverters.
Qorvo initiates multiple acquisitions to lay out the future
Qorvo, a new company formed by the merger of RFMD and TriQuint in 2015, is a well-deserved giant in the RF market.
Official information shows that Qorvo, which was formed by the merger of RFMD and TriQuint that year, combines the complementary product portfolios of both parties, especially power amplifier amplifiers (PA), power management integrated circuits (PMIC), antenna control solutions, switch-based products and high-quality filtering The device is the company’s RF "cornerstone" for future needs. Qorvo also uses these products to deliver the most comprehensive portfolio of high-performance mobile device solutions in the industry. It is precisely because of this merger that the new Qorvo has the strength to improve the quality of services provided by the infrastructure and defense/aerospace industries, and can provide advanced gallium nitride (GaN) solutions for other markets and applications.
The above is exactly what Qorvo has prepared for the currently rapidly developing 5G market.
In fact, in addition to the above business, the wide-ranging needs of national defense, WiFi 6 and the Internet of Things have also contributed to Qorvo's performance that cannot be ignored. In order to enhance the company's strength in radio frequency. Qorvo waved the acquisition stick.
In 2016, Qorvo announced the acquisition of GreenPeak, a leading ultra-low-power, short-range RF communications technology company. This Dutch-based company is one of the world's recognized IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee market leaders. They provide a wealth of semiconductor products and software technologies for smart home data communications and the Internet of Things. This single acquisition allows Qorvo to complement the market-leading high-power RF product portfolio and add innovative ultra-low power, short-range wireless personal area network (WPAN) SoCs, ZigBee and Bluetooth solutions. Let Qorvo take the lead in the IoT market.
In October 2019, Qorvo acquired Cavendish Kinetics, the world's leading supplier of high-performance RF MEMS antenna tuning application technology. It is understood that Qorvo has been a major strategic investor in Cavendish Kinetics since 2015. The RF MEMS equipment developed by the latter is used to tune the main antenna and diversity antenna of smartphones in the low, mid and high frequency bands, thereby bringing Come stronger signal and higher data rate.
Eric Creviston, President of Qorvo Mobile Products, pointed out: "The addition of Cavendish Kinetics has allowed us to establish a market leading position in the field of antenna tuning. Many leading global smartphone suppliers have adopted CK’s RF MEMS technology to reduce loss and improve linearity to achieve antennas. Significant improvement in performance. CK optimized the technology and expanded its scope of application, applying the technology to other applications such as infrastructure and defense. Qorvo will continue to work on the excellent work done by CK."
Last year, Qorvo completed the acquisition of CustomMMIC. As an important manufacturer in the field of RF and microwave MMICs, the latter has extensive experience in developing MMICs with frequencies up to 70 Ghz. Their addition has also enhanced Qorvo’s expertise in GaAs and GaN RF products in the defense and aerospace fields. strength.
While the market is changing, Qorvo has consolidated the company's position in the RF industry through these acquisitions.
It is the cornerstone of Qorvo, there is no doubt about it. But as an enterprise with deep technical accumulation and keen insight. In addition to radio frequency, Qorvo saw the company's new growth opportunities, and personally cut into it, the Internet of Things is one of the most important. The aforementioned acquisition of GreenPeak Technologies is Qorvo's first major bet in this market. Through this single transaction, what they want to cut into is the Internet of Things connection market.
The year before last, they bought a company called Active-Semi. One of the fancy targets of this transaction is the power supply market for IoT devices.
According to data, Active-Semi, established in Silicon Valley, is a rapidly emerging leader in the power management and intelligent motor drive integrated chip (IC) market. The company's analog and mixed-signal SoC product portfolio provides a scalable core platform for charging systems, power supply systems and embedded digital control systems for industrial, commercial and consumer applications. Especially the PAC and programmable analog IC it provides can greatly reduce the solution size and cost, improve system reliability, and shorten system development time. The support it brings to the explosively increasing number of smart home (an application branch of the Internet of Things) device market is obvious.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg of Active-Semi's "treasure Vault".
According to Bob Bruggeworth, Qorvo’s president and CEO, through the acquisition of Active-Semi, Qorvo will increase IDP products (including 5G base stations, defense active phased arrays, automobiles and the Internet of Things) that it provides to existing customers, and integrate its The business scope is expanded to the new high-growth power management market. Qorvo believes that by leveraging the company's global scale, sales channels and customer relationships, and accelerating the adoption of Active-Semi's innovative analog/mixed-signal solutions in multiple markets, we will have plenty of opportunities. "
From his introduction, we know that Qorvo has brought Active-Semi to its subordinates. In addition to the Internet of Things, it also looks at the opportunities it brings to the 5G, industrial, data center, and automotive markets. Take 5G as an example. The new standard not only brings radio frequency requirements, but also faces unprecedented new challenges in terms of base station power supply. This is exactly what Active-Semi is committed to solving.
As for the specific approach, Qorvo said that if the power management, PAC and RF can be effectively combined, and the power can be used to give life to the RF, this can provide the industry with more efficient and higher-quality solutions. Of course, Qorvo's extensive customer base will also be an important support for the company to expand its new business.
After completing the acquisition of analog and mixed-signal SoC suppliers, Qorvo announced the acquisition of Decawave last year without stopping. This is mainly focused on the UWB chip market introduced by Apple in its new generation of flagship smartphones. The so-called UWB, which is Ultra Wideband (Chinese Ultra Wideband), is actually not a new thing. As early as 1960, the concept of UWB was proposed, and in 1973, the first UWB system patent was also granted.
As a non-traditional communication system, UWB uses nanosecond non-sine wave narrow pulses to transmit data for the information carrier, which gives it high positioning accuracy, strong security and anti-interference, high green emission, and multipath resolution. High rate and good system confidentiality.
It is precisely because of its many advantages that UWB is regarded as the preferred choice for smart homes, augmented reality and indoor navigation. After Apple entered this market, the industry's attention has been unprecedentedly high. Qorvo also took a fancy to this business opportunity and acquired Decawave, a leader in the UWB chip industry.
Qorvo said that Decawave is a pioneer in the ultra-wideband (UWB) technology industry and a provider of UWB solutions for mobile, automotive and Internet of Things applications. From its establishment in 2007 to its acquisition by Qorvo this year, Decawave has deployed more than 8 million chipsets in more than 40 different vertical markets (from smartphones to drones). The company's pulse radio UWB technology can achieve positioning services accurate to a few centimeters with extremely low latency, which makes it an important partner for customers to enter this market. In Qorvo's view, based on the groundbreaking work of the Decawave team, coupled with Qorvo's own experience in RF front-end and a large customer base, the combination of the two can embrace UWB to the mobile, automotive, industrial and consumer Internet of Things The huge new opportunities brought about by the expansion of new markets such as fields.
Judging from the development trend of the integrated circuit industry in the past few years, acquisition is undoubtedly an effective way to quickly cut into the new track. Because it is different from the past, the terminal market is now developing rapidly and changing rapidly. For related suppliers, if they cannot quickly occupy a priority position on the track, they may be washed onto the beach by the back waves at any time.
As a company that also has extensive experience in this area, Qorvo has stored enough "ammunition" for the future. After today's single acquisition, Qorvo has further expanded its sphere of influence.