Earlier this week Japanese marine electronics equipment Furono announced the acquisition of eRide Inc., a fabless GPS semiconductor maker, based in San Francisco, Cal. and founded in 1999 by former Trimble employees. the amount of the transaction was not disclosed.
eRide had formed partnerships with several Japanese companies in the past, including EPSON, Hitachi and Furono. In 2005 Furuno and eRide entered into a technology licensing agreement, and in the following year the relationship was strengthened when Furuno invested in eRide’s sale of Series A Preferred Shares.
“Through this acquisition eRide’s high sensitivity GPS technology, LSI design technology and intellectual property will be merged with Furuno’s GPS core technology to enable the creation of new world-class GPS products”, explained Furono. “Furuno is well known for its GPS modules and chip sets in Japan’s automobile industry, especially for in-car navigation systems. The market demand for lower cost and higher quality GPS has been increasing and applications in Japan have spread into many different areas.”
