Stefan Mileschin

Samsung has snapped up the mobile arm of British chip designer CSR in a deal worth $310 million.

According to a Samsung statement, the deal will help strengthen its position as a producer of mobile chips, leveraging CSR’s mobile connectivity and location technologies.

This deal will have Samsung picking up various patents to use in its own chips, and will also see 310 development staff shifting over from CSR - around 12 percent of its staff.

Samsung will also invest $34 million in CSR’s shares to strengthen the firm’s current financial position. This has been somewhat precarious recently, but the news of the acquisition has seen shares soar.

CSR believes the deal will mean it can focus on five growth markets including, voice and music, automotive and bluetooth.

The transaction is expected to be completed during the final quarter of 2012 and should return $285 million to shareholders.

Speaking with TechEye, CSR's CEO Joep Van Buerden said the company's "location and connectivity product and team is cutting edge but stand-alone too small a piece of the handset puzzle to compete with the giants that have the whole jigsaw".

"The deal will accelerate our transformation into a higher gross margin platform company operating in attractive growth markets where we have a leading market position," Van Buerden said.

He added that the mobile arm is "far more valuable in Samsung's hands than in CSR's."

http://news.techeye.net/chips/samsun...srs-mobile-biz