MaxLinear Picks Up Physpeed For $11M

MaxLinear, a maker of RF silicon and integrated circuits for cable modems and set-top boxes, aims to accelerate its entry into the enterprise and telecom infrastructure market via the $11 million acquisition of Physpeed, a privately held maker of high-speed PHY layer interconnect products.

Camarillo, Calif.-based Physpeed makes optical physical medium devices (PMDs) and clock data recovery (CDR) devices at line-rate speeds ranging from 10Gbps to 100Gbps today, with 400Gbps on the roadmap.

MaxLinear said the buy will help it extend into the date center infrastructure market, and open the door to metro and long-haul telecommunications operators.

 “We believe that the unique engineering capabilities which enabled MaxLinear to pioneer Full-Spectrum Capture (FSC™) technologies in cable and satellite broadband communications markets, ideally position us to develop world-class high speed physical layer interconnect devices which will drive the migration of data center and telecommunication markets from 100Gbps to 400Gbps links,” Dr. Kishore Seendripu, CEO of MaxLinear, said in statement.

Under the deal, MaxLinear will pay $11.0 million in cash for all outstanding shares of capital stock and equity of Physpeed. The deal also provides for potential earnout consideration of up to $750,000 for the achievement of certain 2015 and 2016 revenue milestones.  They expect to close the deal by the end of 2014.