PCI Express IP vendor Cascade acquisition by Synopsys...

By SemiWiki

April 10, 2013

… is now 8 years old, and the money paid for this 10 engineers start-up was considered, at that time, as a “bingo” for Cascade’s funders: “In October 2004, the Company completed the acquisition of Cascade Semiconductor Solutions, Inc. (Cascade) for total upfront consideration of $15.8 million and contingent consideration of up to $10.0 million to be paid upon the achievement of certain performance milestones over the three years following the acquisition ” (this quote being extracted from the 10K form filled by Synopsys in 2005). Even if we don’t know if the $10 million have been paid or not, this deal was a pretty high valuation for a 10 engineers start-up, and their flagship product, the PCI Express (gen-1 at that time) Controller, supporting Root Port, EP, SW and Dual Mode configuration. I am sure that, at that time, some people were laughing about Synopsys and the money spent in this acquisition…

To read the full article, click here