SiTime Corporation (NASDAQ: SITM), a precision timing company, has announced that it has entered into an exclusive agreement to acquire Aura Semiconductor’s clock products and license all of its clock IP.
This is an all-cash transaction valued at $148 million, plus earnouts capped at $120 million. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2023, according to a statement.
The acquisition will expand SiTime’s clock product portfolio, adding 20 best-in-class clocks now, and another 20 by the end of 2024. SiTime will also gain access to Aura’s engineering team in Bengaluru, India.
SiTime CEO and Chairman Rajesh Vashist said the acquisition is in line with the company’s vision to transform all categories of the $10 billion timing market. He noted that SiTime has grown its oscillator product line from 60 to 150 unique products since going public in 2019, and that the price of its highest-value oscillator has grown tenfold.
Vashist also said that the acquisition will accelerate SiTime’s clocking revenue by several years, while also increasing its oscillator revenue. He noted that the acquired clocks have gross margins that are higher than SiTime’s corporate target and are used with its Elite TCXO and Epoch OCXO families.
Vashist said that the acquisition will make SiTime the only provider with complete and differentiated precision timing products. He noted that SiTime will offer both clocks and oscillators, standalone and engineered to be optimized with each other, for its core markets of communications, datacenter, and AI.
Barclays acted as the exclusive financial advisor to SiTime on the transaction.