NXP has turned Catena “into a fully internal RF competence center for NXP’s growing businesses in connectivity, radar, car radio and other RF reception areas”, the chipmaker told EE Times. The new center will consist of 125 experts and operate from locations in Delft, Eindhoven and Kista (Sweden) as a part of NXP’s CTO organization headed by Lars Reger.
IP design house Catena was founded in 1986 by a group of people originating from Delft University of Technology. Over the years, it formed close ties with Philips Semiconductors, which were continued after the chip unit was divested from the conglomerate. NXP acquired Catena in 2012 (link in Dutch), but allowed the company to keep serving other companies.
Representing 80 percent of sales recently, however, NXP has become a truly dominant ‘customer’ of Catena’s. More importantly, however, RF is Catena’s strong suit and NXP has been doubling down on that technology of late, as evidenced by last year’s acquisition of Marvell’s wireless connectivity activities.