Ember, the company known for their ZigBee system-on-chip hardware, founded by Ethernet pioneer Bob Metcalfe, will be purchased by Silicon Labs for 72 million USD. Silicon Labs, a prominent mixed-signal manufacturer, hopes to gain traction in the low-power Internet-of-Things market. More from GigaOm:
Ember has raised $81 million over its lifetime, so the $72 million price tag isn’t exactly a win. Investors in Ember have included Polaris Venture Partners, GrandBanks Capital, RRE Ventures, Vulcan Capital, DFJ ePlanet Ventures, DFJ New England, WestLB Mellon Asset Management (formerly West AM), ChevronTexaco Technology Ventures, Hitachi Corporation, Stata Venture Partners and MIT.
Silicon Labs says the acquisition will put it in a good place for the increasing “demand for low-power, small-footprint wireless technology” “as more and more IP-enabled end points are being connected to the Internet of Things.” The acquisition is expected to contribute between $10 million to $12 million to Silicon Lab’s revenue in the second half of 2012, and will be accretive on a non-GAAP basis in 2013. Ember says it has shipped 25 million units.
I’ve been hearing about a potential acquisition of Ember for months. The company has played an important role in the development of ZigBee and the Internet of Things. But as pioneers in a sector, it can be difficult to build a business off of creating building blocks for an ecosystem.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Diving into the Raspberry Pi RP2350, Python Survey Results and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
I’m always kind of dumbfounded by how cheap these wireless IC companies are getting sold for. It’s clearly a difficult niche market, and the lack of a clear winner on the wireless stack/standard front isn’t helping anyone out, but when you think about just the masking fees for a single IC, you get into the multi-millions. Assuming $100K per metal layer for a mid-range process like 90nm, and say 20 metal layers, you have a $2M cheque to sign for every prototype you make just in masking fees, and there’s probably at least two runs for a successful chip.
I thought the NXP purchase of Jennic a while back was a great move strategically, but the $12M price was a real shock to me. That just seemed like peanuts. $72M is a respectable chunk of change to me for Ember, but even that seems pretty small relative to the investment in getting those chips to market.
Clearly this is still an incredibly tough corner of the market to be in, and it’s not going to get better until there’s a lot more clarity about which standard or maybe pair of standards will come out on top (and which version as these things all evolve in different directions competing with each other).
I’m always kind of dumbfounded by how cheap these wireless IC companies are getting sold for. It’s clearly a difficult niche market, and the lack of a clear winner on the wireless stack/standard front isn’t helping anyone out, but when you think about just the masking fees for a single IC, you get into the multi-millions. Assuming $100K per metal layer for a mid-range process like 90nm, and say 20 metal layers, you have a $2M cheque to sign for every prototype you make just in masking fees, and there’s probably at least two runs for a successful chip.
I thought the NXP purchase of Jennic a while back was a great move strategically, but the $12M price was a real shock to me. That just seemed like peanuts. $72M is a respectable chunk of change to me for Ember, but even that seems pretty small relative to the investment in getting those chips to market.
Clearly this is still an incredibly tough corner of the market to be in, and it’s not going to get better until there’s a lot more clarity about which standard or maybe pair of standards will come out on top (and which version as these things all evolve in different directions competing with each other).