Actrans bought for $20 million

(Silicon Storage Technology), a provider of flash memory technology, today announced that it has acquired all of the shares of privately held Actrans Systems.

Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Actrans Systems is a fabless IC company that designs flash memory and EEPROM. SST plans to incorporate Actrans' split-gate NAND flash technology into its portfolio of licensable IP.

Under the terms of the share purchase agreement, which was signed on April 11, SST will pay Actrans' shareholders approximately $20 million in common stock and cash. SST expects to complete the purchase of the remaining three percent of shares this week. The company's engineers will be merged into SST's Standard Memory Product Group, working in both Taiwan and the United States.

Actrans Systems is a designer and developer of flash memory technology and products that also offers IP services for embedded and customer specific applications using flash memory and EEPROM IP macros.

Actrans' split-gate NAND flash memory technologies utilise a 0.15 and 0.12-micron process for targeted densities ranging from 256 Mbit to 1Gbit. The technology has been validated by Powerchip Semiconductor Corporation (PSC), a licensee of SST's SuperFlash technology and an early investor in Actrans Systems.

SST expects to license these split-gate NAND products to PSC and collaborate with PSC to bring these and other higher density products into volume production.

"As we have previously discussed, we continue to look at opportunities to expand our IP and deep sub-micron licensing business through acquisitions and partnerships," said Bing Yeh, SST's president and chief executive officer. "We believe Actrans' proprietary split-gate NAND flash memory technology is an attractive solution that will blend nicely with SST's extensive licensing business."