Semiconductor giant Broadcom has signed a definitive agreement to Gigle Networks, a privately held company that develops system-on-a-chip solutions for home networking over powerlines. The deal is designed to strengthen Broadcom's portfolio of products for wired and wireless communications and will allow Broadcom to provide additional functionality to its customers in the broadband home segments, including chips for settop box makers, broadband carriers and wireless router manufacturers.
The deal highlights a growing demand for technologies to enable home networking system that can handle for the movement of multiple bandwidth intensive HD video streams around the home, noted Jason Blackwell, digital home practice director at ABI Research, who commented on the deal in a prepared statement.
"With electric outlets readily available around the home, more consumers are seeing the benefits of powerline and service providers' increased push toward gateways and IPTV is expected to increase the market at a 32% compound annual growth rate from 2010 to 2015," Blackwell said.
"Broadcom's broadband home platforms span a wide range of segments including set-top box broadband carrier access and wireless router," added Dan Marotta, executive VP and general manager of Broadcom's Broadband Communications Group in a statement. "With the addition of Gigle Networks powerline technology and our proven ability and extensive experience in supporting the multiple methods to connect devices including Ethernet, WiFi, MoCA and DLNA, Broadcom is able to offer service providers and device manufacturers a variety of way to deploy a whole-home connected environment."
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
