NI to buy EDA vendor and RF design firm

LONDON – National Instruments Inc. said Monday (May 23) it would buy high frequency EDA vendor AWR Corp. and Phase Matrix Inc., a provider of RF and microwave components and software, in separate deals worth a combined $96 million.

NI (Austin, Texas) said it signed a definitive agreement to acquire AWR, a supplier of EDA software for designing high-frequency components and systems. The purchase price of $58 million includes $7 million in cash on the AWR balance sheet, the comapny said.

After the acquisition AWR (El Segundo, Calif.) will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of NI under the leadership of the existing management team, NI said.

"AWR has an exceptional team with strong RF talent and technologies that expand the NI platform into RF design, which is complementary to our capability to make measurements across the RF design flow," said James Truchard, president, CEO and co-founder of National Instruments, in a statement.

The companies plan to improve the integration of NI's LabView and Microwave Office and Visual System Simulator from AWR. "There is clear synergy between the customers and product offerings of both companies," said Dane Collins, CEO of AWR. The transaction is expected to close within 30-45 days and is subject to customary closing conditions.
Separately, NI announced the acquisition of Phase Matrix (San Jose, Calif.) for about $38 million. Phase Matrix will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of NI and will continue to design and manufacture RF and microwave test and measurement instruments, subsystems and components, the company said.

NI said the acquisition of Phase Matrix brings key RF talent, technologies and manufacturing capabilities to NI and will significantly increase the capability of NI products in high-frequency RF and microwave applications, extending the frequency range of NI products to 26.5 GHz and beyond.

Phase Matrix founders Pete Pragastis and Charanbir Mahal will remain with the company as the general manager and chief technology officer, respectively, NI said.

"NI has been the leading supplier of PXI modular instrumentation for over a decade, and our significant investments in the development of our PXI RF platform have helped our customers build faster and more efficient RF test systems," Truchard said. "Phase Matrix will help NI significantly accelerate the deployment of high-performance RF and wireless technologies for both R&D and production test applications."