NVIDIA has signed an agreement to acquire chipset developer ULi Electronics.
TAIPEI, TAIWAN and SANTA CLARA, CA—DECEMBER 14, 2005— NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire ULi Electronics Inc. (ULi), one of the PC industry’s most highly-regarded core logic developers. Headquartered in Taipei, ULi also has offices in Hsinchu; Shanghai; Shenzhen; and San Jose, California.
According to the official press release, the deal will cost NVIDIA about $52 million. Should the acquisition meet various regulatory requirements, it will be completed in the first quarter of ULi’s 2007 fiscal year.
Although ULi is one of the smaller players in the chipset world, the company’s acquisition by NVIDIA has interesting ramifications for the red team. ATI’s Radeon Xpress 200 chipset has long been capable of working with ULi south bridge chips, and many motherboard manufacturers are using ULi chips in lieu of ATI’s SB450. Those motherboard manufacturers will be able to get current ULi products for the “foreseeable future,” but they likely won’t have an alternative to ATI’s south bridge offerings for future chipsets.
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