On the heals of acquiring WiMAX chip maker Beceem Communications, Broadcom has made another silicon acquisition, paying $86 million in cash for privately held Percello, which makes system-on-a-chip femtocell solutions.
Rather than building solutions from scratch, Broadcom aims to make strategic acquisitions to get solutions out into the market quicker and at the time when demand is beginning to peak. Earlier this month Broadcom announced it had signed a $316-million deal to acquire privately held Beceem to enable it to get a leg up in the next-generation chip market that consists of WiMAX and LTE. The same is true in the femtocell market with the acquisition of Percello.
Moreover, the next-generation market is expected to be one where 4G and femtocells work together as operators aim to deploy the mini base stations in areas where network traffic will be highest. And of course femtocells are seen as a way to offload heavy 3G traffic today.
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