$2.4 billion! Qualcomm acquires SerDes IP giant Alphawave

QCOM.O, a US chip manufacturing giant, announced on Monday that it has agreed to acquire globally renowned semiconductor IP suppliers for approximately US$2.4 billion Alphawave (AWE.L), a move that is part of its efforts to strengthen artificial intelligence technology.

Alphawave shareholders will receive a purchase price of 183 pence per share, a premium of nearly 96% from Qualcomm's share price before the acquisition intention was disclosed. The company's shares jumped 22% in early trading in London stocks, close to the acquisition price level.

Alphawave designs and licenses semiconductor technologies for data centers, networks and storage fields, and its "serdes" technology attracted interest in the acquisition of Qualcomm and SoftBank's chip technology supplier Arm (O9Ty.F), in early April. This technology is the basis for chip data processing speed — crucial to the development of artificial intelligence — and is also the cornerstone of Broadcom and MRVL.O’s multi-billion-dollar custom chip businesses.

According to Reuters' exclusive report in April, Arm withdrew from the acquisition after preliminary discussions with Alphawave.

Qualcomm also proposed two alternative all-stock acquisition plans to Alphawave shareholders after receiving the UK Acquisitions Committee's official offer postponed.

Alphawave said that he believed the terms of the cash acquisition were fair and reasonable, and planned to unanimously recommend the plan to shareholders. Alphawave also completed the sale of its shares in WiseWave, a joint venture with Chinese investment company Wise Road Capital, to existing state-owned shareholders on Monday.

Alphawave was founded in Canada in 2017. It is a London-listed high-speed interconnected IP and customized chip design service company.

Alphawave Although she is young, she has considerable popularity in the semiconductor industry, especially in the semiconductor IP market.

According to IPnest in 2025 4 Data released by the Design IP Report was released month, and Alphawave ranked fourth in the ranking of IP suppliers by category, nature (authorization and royalties)!

Its core technologies and advantages include