back to article Samsung swoops on Brit chip biz CSR, grabs talents'n'patents

A British chip-design company has sold its mobile and GPS location-finding tech wing to Samsung for $310 million (£198m). Cambridge-based biz CSR sealed the deal today, according to a regulatory notice from the London Stock Exchange. It will shift 310 employees, and an attractive sheaf of patents, over to the South Korean …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. ukgnome
    Coat

    And slowly the silicon fen gets sold for real estate

    *the one with marsh reviewer monthly in the pocket

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    $310million for assets and 310 staff. but how much will those staff get?

    So, 310 people have been transferred to a new employer, but how much will it benefit them? Or are they the usual pawns in the game?

    1. Graham Bartlett

      Re: $310million for assets and 310 staff. but how much will those staff get?

      How much? Zero if they're not also shareholders. That's how a company works.

      But at least they shouldn't be at risk of "right-sizing". If you buy a company for its intellectual assets, you'd have to be pretty moronic to fire those assets.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Whaaaa?

    Buying a company that actually has revenue? Madness!

    ;)

    1. peter 45

      Re: Whaaaa?

      Not to mention real patents. None of this "we thought of using rectangles first. Wah Boo Hoo!" rubbish.

  4. hugo tyson
    Coat

    Fabless

    OK, I'll bite: CSR is not fabless in the sense that it meant in the 1990s when ARM was new: it does not license its designs. CSR pays TSMC to make chips that CSR owns and sells; CSR does not own a fab itself.

    But these days young people call that fabless too, because of the not-owning-fab aspect.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fabless

      CSR is very much a fabless chipmaker.

      ARM, on the otherhand, in an IP provider.

    2. Pete Wood
      Boffin

      Re: Fabless

      I did send a correction note in (to El Reg) about this, but it looks like it hasn't been actioned, the wording is still the same (and incorrect). CSR makes - or has made, up until now - its living by selling actual physical chips, not by selling IP for others to incorporate into their chips.

  5. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Samsung got a bargain

    This will be interesting. GPS has been a weakness in their devices up till now.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Samsung got a bargain

      And when they DID have people that knew GPS, they ignored them... Samsung DO already own GPS patents (when they EVENTUALLY filed them...)

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like