Tuesday, October 09, 2007

FLASH MEMORY TECHNOLOGY

Spansion to buy Israeli firm for $368 million

Spansion Inc. said Monday it has agreed to buy an Israeli chip development company for $368 million in cash and stock.

Spansion, a leading maker of flash memory chips used in cell phones and other devices, with factory operations in Austin, plans to buy Saifun Semiconductor Ltd.

The companies have had business dealings for years. Since 2002, Spansion has licensed technology from Saifun that was a cornerstone of its successful MirrorBit product line of dense flash memory chips.

Spansion, which was spun off from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in 2005, employs about 1,000 workers at its Fab 25 manufacturing complex in Southeast Austin.

It lost $147.8 million on sales of $2.58 billion in 2006.

Spansion says the acquisition will bolster its product development plans, allow it to enter the technology licensing business, let it expand MirrorBit technology into new product segments and expand its profit margins.

LAB TESTING

Rules Based Medicine buys German company

Austin-based Rules Based Medicine Inc. has acquired a German company called Experimentelle und Diagnostische Immunologie for an undisclosed sum.

This is the second acquisition for Rules Based Medicine, which does laboratory testing for multiple biomarkers at once, while using a small sample. It is considered a faster and more efficient way to test for indicators of diseases.

Experimentelle, also known as EDI, has developed a cell culture test that lets scientists mimic the reaction a human body might have to various medicines. This will let scientists side-step using humans at the earlier stages in some clinical trials, according to Craig Benson, the president and CEO of Rules Based Medicine.

Benson said Rules Based Medicine will use its laboratory technology to determine the results of the EDI test.