Rohm acquires Powervation

ROHM Co., a Kyoto based global leader in analog power IC solutions, announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Powervation Ltd., a Start-up power IC company that develops Digital Power Management system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for approximately $70M, in an all-cash transaction.

The strategic combination of Powervation’s Intelligent Digital Power^™platform with ROHM’s leading analog power technology and global market access will enable the company to address a broad range of fast growing market opportunities, as customers increasingly adopt digital power solutions to power next generation high density systems and ICs such as Processors, Memory, FPGAs and ASICs.

“ROHM and Powervation share a common vision for the role of digital power technology in transforming the market with next-generation high performance power solutions,”

stated Mike Smith, SVP & GM of ROHM Semiconductor USA.

Since its founding in Ireland in 2006, as a University of Limerick spin-out, Powervation has established itself as a leading innovator in digital power controllers serving high performance Computing, Cloud and Communications infrastructure markets. The Company’s proprietary DSP control platform with patented xTune auto-tuning and ITM intelligent transient management technologies, has been adopted by industry leading customers who need advanced power management, precision telemetry/control and high efficiency solutions to power their complex multi-rail, multi-phase systems. Powervation delivers on these needs with further breakthroughs on design flexibility, fast time-to-market and lower total cost of ownership.

ROHM, a $3B global leader in analog and power semiconductors, supplies a diversified global customer base in the consumer, automotive and industrial markets. By acquiring Powervation, ROHM will gain leading-edge digital power technologies to strengthen its product offerings in the rapidly-growing cloud, data-center, and communications infrastructure markets. This acquisition will also enable ROHM to develop advanced digital power solutions for a broader range of markets and applications with Powervation’s flexible controller platform.

“The combination of our two companies will enable ROHM to develop industry-leading, integrated digital power solutions to serve a broad range of customers, markets, and applications spanning the entire spectrum from Computing and Communications to Consumer and Industrial,”

stated Jun Iida, head of LSI development and member of the ROHM board of directors.

Powervation will become a fully owned subsidiary of ROHM, with principal design center in Cork, Ireland and system application centers in San Jose, CA and Asia which fuse expertise in power systems, digital control, silicon and embedded software. ROHM plans to accelerate product development through investment and synergies with ROHM analog/discrete power technologies and to increase market adoption further by leveraging ROHM’s global customer base and channels.

“The Powervation team is excited to join forces with ROHM, a top 25 global semiconductor company,” said Mike McAuliffe, CEO of Powervation. “It’s simply a great fit – we have built an innovative Digital Power IC company to date but the combination with ROHM now presents a compelling opportunity for broad market leadership in Digital Power Management solutions.”