Rohm Ltd, the €3bn Japanese electronic component manufacturing group is to pay $70m (€63.7) in cash to acquire, Powervation, a Cork-based company which was founded as a University of Limerick campus spin off company, just nine years ago.
Powervation produces intelligent, energy-saving microchips which control and manage the costs associated with the huge amounts of electricity required to power data centres.
The company currently employs 40 people – 20 in Blackrock in Cork, 10 in the US and 10 in Taiwan.
Dr Eamonn O’ Malley, co-founder of the company and fellow academic, Dr Karl Rinne still work with Powervation full time.
Powervation has been backed financially by a range of institutional and venture capital investors such as Intel Capital, Semtech Corporation and Scottish Equity Partners.
"By acquiring Powervation, ROHM will gain leading-edge digital power technologies to strengthen its product offerings in the rapidly-growing cloud, data-center, and communications infrastructure markets," the companies said in a joint-statement.
"This acquisition will also enable ROHM to develop advanced digital power solutions for a broader range of markets and applications with Powervation’s flexible controller platform."
Powervation will become a fully owned subsidiary of ROHM.
