Spreadtrum Communications Completes Acquisition of Quorum Systems

(Top News, 17 Jan 2008)

Mainland China-based Spreadtrum Communications Inc. has completed the acquisition of Quorum Systems Inc., a San Diego-based fabless semiconductor company that specializes in the design of highly integrated CMOS radio frequency (RF) transceivers. Spreadtrum announced on November 18, 2007, that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Quorum for $55 million in cash and $15 million in stock, with up to an additional $6 million in cash for performance based earn-outs expected to be achieved within two years after the close of the transaction. Spreadtrum expects the combined entity to provide a more competitive and complete wireless platform, providing Spreadtrum with more design flexibility while expanding its addressable markets. Prior to the closing, Spreadtrum and Quorum were issued an export license by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the transaction was reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

With the acquisition of Quorum, Spreadtrum gains a highly skilled RF engineering team of 30 engineers with an average of 10 years of industry experience. The combination of Spreadtrum's leading single-chip baseband solutions with Quorum's complementary, low-power high-performance RF designs is expected to strengthen Spreadtrum's competitive position in the wireless market, including in 2G, 3G, RF, baseband, physical layer software, protocol and applications. Since its founding in 2003, Quorum has created multi-band transceiver designs ranging from GSM/GPRS/EDGE to WCDMA and 3G HSDPA application, plus a recently announced TD-SCDMA platform.

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