Combination of Decawave unique technology and Qorvo’s expertise in high-volume radio frequency (RF) products to drive growth of UWB across markets

Dublin, Ireland, January 30, 2020 – Decawave, an Irish fabless semi-conductor company specializing in precise location and connectivity applications, has announced today that it will be acquired by Qorvo (Nasdaq: QRVO), a leading provider of innovative RF solutions that connect the world. The acquisition will advance market penetration of IR-UWB and enable broad global adoption of this transformational technology.

Decawave was founded in Dublin in 2007 by current CEO Ciaran Connell and CTO Michael McLaughlin. The co-founders had a vision that the new IR-UWB technology, based on a nascent IEEE standard, could deliver ultra-accurate location in a way that would revolutionize people’s lives like GPS did in the 1990s.

Twelve years later, IR-UWB is on the verge of becoming the next essential component technology, like GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth before it. Already shipping in millions of smartphones and cars, and across more than 40 other verticals, IR-UWB is enabling accurate indoor location services, secure communications, context aware user interfaces and advanced analytics.

“We are thrilled to announce the acquisition of Decawave by Qorvo,” said co-founder and CEO Ciaran Connell. “We have created an incredibly unique technology, but we understand that to embrace the opportunity in front of us, we will need greater resources to execute at scale, accelerate our innovation and product launches and to continue to support our growing customer base with the same level of service.

“Joining forces with Qorvo’s leading expertise in RF technology, their experience in serving very high-volume markets like Mobile but also the thousands of customers in Industrial and Enterprise, is, for Decawave, a perfect combination to scale and further accelerate the adoption of IR-UWB.”

Eric Creviston, President of Qorvo Mobile Products, said, “We’re very pleased to welcome the Decawave team, which we believe will enhance Qorvo’s product and technology leadership while expanding new opportunities in mobile, automotive and IoT.  We look forward to building on the groundbreaking work that Decawave has done and helping to drive new applications and businesses using their unique UWB capability.”   

Decawave co-founder Michael McLaughlin added, “From proving a new technology, to building new markets and to today joining a Tier 1 semiconductor company, the past 12 years have been a challenging and fantastic journey. 

“None of this would have been possible without the dedication and passion of Decawave employees as well as the constant support from our lead investor Atlantic Bridge, Act Venture Capital, Summit Bridge (backed by Ireland Strategic Investment Fund), Enterprise Ireland and our business angels. To all others who accompanied us on this journey we also say a sincere and profound thank you and we look forward to the next chapter for IR-UWB.”

In the coming months and years Decawave and Qorvo will:

• Continue to contribute to the IEEE, Car Connectivity Consortium, FiRa and UWB alliance to define next generation PHYs and protocols, ensuring interoperability across applications and fueling IR-UWB adoption,
• Accelerate the roadmap of ICs and modules, leveraging their respective R&D strengths and product portfolio to bring even more IR-UWB solutions to the market,
• Pursue existing partnerships and investments in enablement to offer flexible and easy to integrate IR-UWB solutions to our customers.

Decawave would like to also acknowledge Jefferies LLC who served as exclusive financial advisor, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Crowley Millar who served as legal advisors to Decawave.

About Decawave
Decawave develops semiconductor solutions, software, modules and reference designs that enable real-time, ultra-accurate, ultra-reliable local area micro-location services. Decawave is headquartered in Ireland, with regional headquarters in California and China and a presence in South Korea, France and Japan. For more information, visit www.decawave.com.

About Qorvo
Qorvo (Nasdaq: QRVO) makes a better world possible by providing innovative Radio Frequency (RF) solutions at the center of connectivity. We combine product and technology leadership, systems-level expertise and global manufacturing scale to quickly solve our customers' most complex technical challenges. Qorvo serves diverse high-growth segments of large global markets, including advanced wireless devices, wired and wireless networks and defense radar and communications. We also leverage unique competitive strengths to advance 5G networks, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and other emerging applications that expand the global framework interconnecting people, places and things. Visit www.qorvo.com to learn how Qorvo connects the world.

Qorvo is a registered trademark of Qorvo, Inc. in the U.S. and in other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.