Sirenza Microdevices (Sunnyvale, CA) acquired the assets of the Vari-L Co. (Denver, CO) on May 5, bringing together companies with different product lines but similar cultures. Integration of the two companies offers traditional manufacturing capability to Sirenza (a fabless company), along with 50 years of experience in VCOs, PLLs, and other frequency generation devices, and a presence in the defense market. Vari-L benefits from Sirenza's breadth of design and semiconductor expertise, greater capitalization, and similar interests in the infrastructure market. Robert Van Buskirk, CEO of Sirenza, and Chuck Bland, formerly CEO of Vari-L and now COO of Sirenza, offer two points of view on the new organization.

MRF: Tell us a little about Sirenza's history.

Van Buskirk: The company was founded by John Ocampo and his wife, Susan, who are still the company's largest shareholders. John is chairman of the board and Susan is treasurer. Their vision was to develop a broad range of new products featuring advanced technologies, but since they were self-funded they did not have the capital required for manufacturing. However, the fabless business model gave them a practical way to bring many advanced technologies to the market. The company actually started out as a semiconductor packaging supplier called Matrix Microassemblies. John and Susan took products originally intended for defense applications and applied commercial packaging and test processes for commercial applications. With their defense heritage, these products had high performance and were well suited to wireless-infrastructure applications, which is how the company moved into that area. The company ultimately changed its name to Stanford Microdevices, and to Sirenza Microdevices in January 2001.

MRF: What attracted you to the company?

Van Buskirk: I met John when I was at TRW where I was responsible for its commercial GaAs business. Stanford Microdevcices was one of our foundry customers. I knew the pros and cons of being a fabless company, and I had become a proponent of the fabless business model. I joined the company because I had a keen interest in further developing that model.

MRF: What led Vari-L to seek an acquisition partner?

Bland: We knew for several years that it would be necessary for Vari-L to diversify its product line to remain competitive in some important market segments. When your primary customers are manufacturers of base-station equipment, the size of your company and the breadth of its solutions definitely matter. These large companies are intensely focused on reducing cost, and they will retain only those suppliers that can help them achieve it. They demand a wide range of design solutions and the ability to deliver functional blocks, not just a single-function component. To prosper in this environment, we needed engineering talent that spans the entire transmit and receive chain. Sirenza's strength in amplifiers and semiconductors seemed to be very complementary to Vari-L's expertise in VCOs and PLLs. We felt that together we could provide the multifunction modules that base-station manufacturers are asking for, as well as more versatile design services.

MRF: Apparently, several suitors were pursuing Vari-L. Why did Vari-L ultimately choose Sirenza?

Bland: Seven companies were interested in Vari-L. We chose Sirenza because we saw a fit between our strengths and theirs, and because Sirenza is well capitalized, so it has staying power for the long term. Both companies are also focused on serving the infrastructure marketplace, and have similar goals.

Van Buskirk: At Sirenza, we knew also that size and versatility were becoming crucial. Customers told us it would be advantageous for us to broaden our products and technology. Vari-L looked like a partner that could make this happen. We had lots of versatility in semiconductors, but Vari-L would give us oscillator, synthesizer, mixer, and passive component expertise. Having a global footprint is also important, and large portions of Sirenza's sales are to countries other than the US, which is true also for Vari-L. Now when we go to these companies we'll be able to offer a much more complete solution.