Broadcom to acquire Dune for $178 mn

SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Chipmaker Broadcom Corp said on Monday it agreed to buy privately held Dune Networks for around $178 million in cash in a move to bolster its portfolio of network equipment products.

Broadcom said it expects the deal to be neutral to slightly accretive to earnings per share in 2010, excluding certain items.

Broadcom, which makes chips for everything from cellphones to TV set-top boxes, said it would pay $178 million for Dune, net of cash assumed from the company.

Dune makes networking chips used in ethernet switches, which are used to move and direct data in a network.

Martin Lund, general manager of Broadcom's network switching business, noted that Dune's technology is well suited to meet the requirements of large-scale cloud computing networks.

Dune was founded in 2000. It has around 100 employees, with offices in Sunnyvale, California and Yakum, Israel.

Its investors include Alta Berkeley Venture Partners, Aurum-SBC Ventures, Evergreen Venture Partners, Jerusalem Venture Partners, Pitango Venture Capital and U.S. Venture Partners.

The deal is expected to close by the end of March.