Israeli Wireless Chipset Firm DSP Group Acquired By Synaptics

Israeli-founded voice and wireless chipset solutions provider DSP Group has been acquired by US electronic hardware firm Synaptics in an agreement signed and approved by the board of directors of both firms, the two companies announced on Monday.

The deal was said to be made for about $600 million, according to Israeli financial daily CTech by Calcalist.

DSPG had agreed to the deal at a price of $22 per share in an all-cash transaction.

Founded in 1989, DSP Group is a provider of chipsets for VoIP, multimedia, and digital cordless applications. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California but has offices in offices in Israel, Germany, Scotland, Israel, India, Hong Kong, and Japan.

DSP Group has leadership positions across multiple markets in the Internet of Audio Things (IoAT) with significant growth opportunities in low power SmartVoice, unified communications & collaboration, and wireless IoT devices. Most of these solutions are quite relevant to Synaptics’ existing customer base, furthering the strategy of cross-selling portfolio devices, the companies said in a statement.

Synaptics anticipates that the merger will generate $30 million more in revenue within 12 months of closing.

The transaction is expected to be financed through a combination of cash on hand and a fully committed, incremental debt financing arrangement with a projected close by the end of calendar year 2021, subject to DSP Group shareholder approval and customary closing conditions.

“We are excited to join forces with Synaptics, a recognized leader in products for IoT. This combination provides a great result for our shareholders who have supported us through this journey, delivering meaningful and certain value,” said Ofer Elyakim, CEO of DSP Group. “Our complementary portfolios together with the combination of our world-class engineering teams creates an exciting opportunity for DSP Group’s core technology to extend further into our existing customers’ product portfolio.”

“We continue to invest in technologies that tilt our product mix toward IoT applications. DSP Group’s expertise in SmartVoice and ULE wireless solutions, coupled with Synaptics’ leadership position in far-field speech recognition and IoT directed Wi-Fi/BT combos enables us to deliver increasingly differentiated solutions to our combined customer base while positioning us to lead the transition to AI-enabled devices at the edge of the network,” said Michael Hurlston, Synaptics president and CEO.