Microchip Sells Certain SST Assets to Greenliant

Microchip Technology Inc. has completed the sale of certain assets from its Silicon Storage Technology (SST) subsidiary to a new company headed by SST's former management.

Greenliant Systems Ltd, founded by Bing Yeh, the ex-chairman and CEO of SST, has acquired the NANDrive, NAND Controller, and Specialty Flash Memory product lines for an undisclosed price. As part of the deal, approximately 100 employees or 18 percent of SST's workforce move to Greenliant, as well as inventory, equipment, IP (intellectual property), and certain other assets in Sunnyvale, California; Hsinchu, Taiwan; and Shanghai and Beijing, China.

After fighting a bidding war with an investment firm, Microchip closed its acquisition of SST in early April. The company then announced it would break up SST in early May, selling certain non-core assets.

Greenliant was formed in April, with much of its core management and engineering staff including many of the original NANDrive and NAND Controller design team members.

Greenliant said the acquired product lines will form the core of its solid-state storage product portfolio for the embedded system, data center, and mobile Internet markets.

"By acquiring the NANDrive solid-state drive and NAND Controller assets of Microchip Technology, Greenliant is well positioned to take a leadership position in the fast-growing market for solid-state storage products," said Yeh, CEO of Greenliant, in a statement. "We are fully committed to providing continued and uninterrupted support to existing customers of NANDrive, NAND Controllers, and Specialty Flash Memory products through our well-established global sales channels and manufacturing partners in wafer foundry, chip packaging, and testing.

"With our team of seasoned technologists and technical marketing experts, Greenliant will continue to develop and market advanced solid-state storage solutions for the needs of our rapidly changing world," he continued. "Green and reliant, as our corporate name implies, will be the center of our focus. Our corporate mission is to develop and market energy-efficient, highly reliable and secure storage solutions for the embedded system, data center and mobile Internet applications."

Microchip noted that since acquiring SST it has been working on integration activities, including taking actions to achieve strong financial returns from the continuing businesses, integrating the SST employees into the Microchip culture, and actively marketing those assets held for sale.

The company does not expect today's sale to impact on its financial guidance for continuing operations, as the results from the business units sold to Greenliant have been classified as discontinued operations.

Microchip

Greenliant Systems