Nvidia are extending their expertise in providing the chippery for portable devices by buying PortalPlayer, who are responsible for the controlling chips for the hard-disk-based iPods, or “powers some of the world’s most recognizable portable digital music players,” as they chose to describe it.
Nvidia will pay $13.50 in cash for each outstanding share of PortalPlayer common stock, which adds up to approximately $357 million, dropping to around $161 million excluding the cash PortalPlayer’ has on its balance sheet.
Highlighting the companies logic in buying PortalPlayer, Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia enlightened all, “Modern mobile devices are miniaturized yet powerful multimedia computers. At the core of their architectures are complex Application Processors integrating microprocessors, system logic, networking, and multimedia processors.”
There’d been some speculation that Nvidia might have sold out to Intel, following their graphics-chip competitor ATi being bought by AMD, but moves like this make it clear that they’re taking a different path. This was outlined by Huang, “With this acquisition, we are combining the two essential technologies of next-generation PMPs, PDAs, portable game players, and phones: PortalPlayer’s innovative Application Processor technology and NVIDIA’s industry-leading GPU technology. With the products created through this combination, we intend to drive the next digital revolution, where the mobile device becomes our most personal computer.”