Marvell to Buy Former IBM Chip-Design Unit for $650 Million Cash

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. will acquire the Avera Semiconductor chip-design unit from Globalfoundries Inc. for $650 million in cash, adding the ability to produce more specialized semiconductors needed for 5G phone networks and cloud-data centers.

The unit was formerly owned by International Business Machines Corp., which sold it to Globalfoundries in 2015. Marvell will get about 800 engineers focused on application specific integrated circuits, or ASICs, a type of semiconductor that is growing in importance as companies work to handle a rising flood of data. Marvell aims to complete the transaction by the end of its fiscal year in January and may pay an additional $90 million if certain business conditions are met, the company said Monday in a statement.