OCZ Technology Group, a provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs), has announced it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire the UK Design Team and certain assets from PLX Technology, further strengthening the company’s global research and development team.

PLX’s UK Design Team has built a reputation for designing innovative and reliable system-on-chip (SoC) solutions and the acquired engineering team’s expertise provides OCZ with additional resources for controller design. Through the acquisition of the engineering team and the license of intellectual property (IP), OCZ will be able to accelerate solid state drive development, reducing its time to market for next generation SSD products, while also reducing development costs.

 Pursuant to the agreement, OCZ will among other items acquire from PLX access to substantial IP and the UK Design Team, which consists primarily of approximately 40 engineers located in Abingdon, United Kingdom. PLX will retain their existing line of products which they will continue to support and supply to their customer base, and any patents related to the technology, for which OCZ will receive a perpetual license. The acquisition is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of various closing conditions.

“We are pleased to augment our engineering organization with the UK Design Team as they have been providing best of breed system-on-chip designs, software, and firmware since 1992. We believe the additional engineers along with the access to increased IP resources will enable us to significantly reduce the costs associated with storage protocol licensing, while simultaneously speeding our time to market,” said Ryan Petersen, chief executive officer of OCZ Technology.

Tags: OCZ, PLX, SSD, NAND, Flash