Rambus acquires CRI
Rambus has completed its acquisition of Cryptography Research, Inc (CRI).
According to the company, the acquisition expands the breadth of its technologies available for licensing with patented innovations and solutions for content protection, network security, anti-counterfeiting and financial services. Nearly all of CRI’s employees have joined Rambus following the close of the acquisition and will continue operations at CRI’s San Francisco office.
“CRI’s technology is critical to securing a broad spectrum of electronic systems against piracy or unauthorized access which is of growing strategic importance in our increasingly connected world,” says Harold Hughes, president and chief executive officer at Rambus. “Harnessing the power of our world-class innovation and licensing platform, the addition of CRI to our semiconductor, and lighting and display businesses, will contribute significantly to accelerating our revenue growth.”
More than five billion semiconductor products secured by CRI’s technology are made under license annually. Key technologies developed by CRI include differential power analysis (DPA) countermeasures. DPA attacks involve monitoring the fluctuating electrical power consumption of a target device and then using advanced statistical methods to derive cryptographic keys and other secrets. With CRI’s DPA countermeasures, electronic systems and security devices, such as smart cards, are protected from DPA attacks.
In addition, CRI offers anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting solutions including CryptoFirewall technology. The CryptoFirewall core is a separate, on-chip, hardware-based security block that protects cryptographic keys and computations from attack. CryptoFirewall solutions can be used across a broad spectrum of applications including Pay TV security and counterfeit protection of products such as printer consumables.
The acquisition of CRI is for $167.5 million in cash, approximately 6.4 million newly issued shares of Rambus stock, and $50 million payable to CRI employees in cash or stock over three years. While the accounting for the transaction is not yet finalized, Rambus estimates that on a non-GAAP basis, this acquisition will be accretive to earnings per share in fiscal 2013.