Apple in talks to buy Israel’s Anobit Technologies for $400-500 million: report
14 Dec 2011
Apple Inc, the $108-bn technology giant, is in talks to buy Israeli flash storage solutions provider Anobit Technologies Ltd for between $400 and 500 million.
Israel's Hebrew-language financial daily, the Calcalist yesterday reported that the potential deal would be one of the largest acquisitions by the Cupertino-California-based company and its first in Israel.
Based in Herzliya and founded in 2006 by its current CEO Ehud Weinstein and president Ariel Maislos, Anobit provides flash storage solutions for enterprise and mobile markets, based on its proprietary Memory Signal Processing technology.
Its solutions are designed to improve the speed, endurance and performance of flash systems while driving down the cost. Anobit's technology is comprised of signal processing algorithms that compensate for physical limitations of flash memory chips.
Anobit's chip that speeds up flash drive performance without needing more RAM, is already being used by Apple in its iPhone, iPad and the MacBook Air. Anobit also supplies the same chip to Apple's rivals, Samsung and Hynix, which are built in into their flash drives.
Anobit, which has raised $76 million in venture funding, from Battery Ventures, Intel Capital and Pitango Venture Capital, will become Apple's research and development centre in Israel when the deal is completed, the report said.
