California-based pure-play product engineering and software firm Aricent acquired SmartPlay Technologies of Bangalore for $180 million. 1,100 developers at Aricent and the staff of 1,200 at SmartPlay will be combined to create a new group that will focus on custom versions of chip sets for servers, game consoles and other systems adding security, graphics and other accelerators. The co-founder and CEO of SmartPlay Pradeep Vajram will be the president of the new group.
“A lot of companies are looking at vertical integration and want devices that are specific to their needs that they can build value on,” Vajram told EE Times. “There are big OEMs convinced semiconductors will add value for them — this trend is just beginning and will continue. India is very mature right now when it comes to implementation skills — I don’t think there is any difference between its capabilities and those in North America and Europe,” Vajram said.
