Atheros advances digital home agenda with Intellon buy

摘要

Atheros communications inc. has agreed to acquire Intellon Corp. in a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately $244 million. Intellon's powerline communications (PLC) technology operates on the home power circuit. By combining its own wireless LAN and Ethernet products with the Intellon PLC-based offerings, Atheros hopes to drive further adoption of the digital home. "The acquisition makes sense," Daniel Amir, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, stated in a report. First, "it enables Atheros' entry into the broad-band-over-powerline space, which is synergistic to the WLAN segment in the home networking market." Lazard noted that the powerline market is expected to grow at roughly a 30 percent compound annual rate in the next few years-"faster than WLAN."