UK wireless firm with city arm changes hands

Bangalore R&D team, rechristened CSR India, to play 'key role'

After agreeing, last month, to buy the software division of UbiNetics, a wireless technologies firm, Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) said here on Friday, the wireless technologies firm's 140 engineers here will "play a key role" in their new company. CSR will buy the division for $48 million, a company release said.

These engineers form the bulk of UbiNetics's software development staff, making software programmes (protocol stacks) that run wireless devices such as cellular phone handsets. They will now be called CSR India, the release said.

Their transfer to CSR, along with a 60-member engineering team in Shenzen, China, effectively closes down UbiNetics. The firm had already sold, in May, its testing division to Aeroflex, a Nasdaq-traded company that made automated testing solutions and microelectronics for the aerospace, defence, and broadband communications markets.

John Hodgson, CEO of CSR said, "We are exploiting our distinctive capabilities and there is great synergy here. The UbiNetics R&D team in Bangalore will be joining CSR to give us a world leading wireless software capability that will help sustain our clear competitive advantage."

The strength of CSR's software development team has increasingly proven to be a key differentiator between CSR and its competitors, and with this acquisition, CSR moves closer to its target of 60 per cent of its headcount being involved in software. CSR's stated aim has been to continue investing in R&D to preserve the long-term future of the business, Hodgson said.

James Collier, CTO and co-founder of CSR commented, "CSR continues to grow its software development activities. In the mobile phone market we see both 'call hand-off' between cellular and local area networks (LAN) and high speed data handling as key drivers" for the widespread deployment of personal area networks, comprising for instance a hadset and an earpiece, and LAN.

"Together with UbiNetics, we will have all the experience, skills, track record and staff required to design the software for Universal Mobile Access and fixed-mobile converged phones. Looking ahead, we plan to extend the range of our products in order to simplify the complex integration task of the mixed hardware/software and the multi-standard system that a cellular phone has become," Collier said.

UbiNetics was owned by PA Consulting Group, a consultancy and 3i, a private equity and venture fund, in the UK.

It was "born out of the wireless technology practice" of PA, and founded in 1999 as an independent venture company. It had some 450 staff, in the UK, India and China, prior to the sale of the testing division, which brought its investors about $85 million.