Broadcom gets Gigle in home networking acquisition

Semiconductor firm Broadcom has agreed to acquire fellow chip company Gigle Networks for $75 million in cash--a deal that will have implications in the rapidly consolidating powerline home networking segment, as well as affecting the broader push toward home G.hn standard home networking.

Gigle, a privately-held company based in Barcelona, Spain, is a member of the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, which promotes the HomePlug AV specification for home networking. However, the company also has been working in the G.hn arena and should help speed Broadcom’s advances into both of these segments.

Although the G.hn standard has been approved and vendors are pushing products toward the market, home networking remains a fragmented sector and could be that way for a while as mixed technology deployments actually become more desirable for supporting comprehensive, whole-home services. That emerging reality that has spurred the largest chip vendors to make sure all bases are covered.

Broadcom is the latest to do that through acquisition, buying arguably the best-known of a dwindling cadre of powerline chip firms. The Gigle deal follows Marvell Technology Group’s acquisition of another Spanish powerline firm, DS2, as well as Atheros Communications’ acquisition of Intellon. Pprior to these deals, Conexant Systems sold its powerline networking assets to Ikanos Communications.

ABI Research has said the powerline portion of the home networking market could see a 32 percent compound annual growth rate between this year and 2015.

Broadcom will look to incorporate Gigle’s HomePlug chips, which are also IEEE 1901-compliant, into set-top boxes, routers and residential gateways manufactured by its equipment vendor partners.