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PMC-Sierra completed its acquisition of Abrizio in early September 1999, announcing the closing on September 3—less than two weeks after the August 24 deal announcement. The transaction was valued at approximately $400 million, but it was paid with PMC-Sierra equity and related instruments rather than cash. Abrizio brought a switching-fabric chipset aimed at the core of broadband network equipment, complementing PMC-Sierra’s established networking-chip business.
What happened and when
PMC-Sierra announced the proposed acquisition on August 24, 1999, and reported completion on September 3. The short interval matched the companies’ expectation that the transaction would close in roughly two weeks. The completion announcement described consideration of approximately 4.35 million PMC-Sierra shares, along with warrants and stock options, at an approximate value of $400 million.
That headline figure was a stock valuation, not a $400 million cash payment. Its dollar value therefore depended on PMC-Sierra’s share price and on how associated equity instruments were treated.
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EE Times reported the August 24 announcement, while the September 3 completion report described the closing.
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Who Abrizio was
Abrizio was a privately held, approximately two-year-old fabless semiconductor company based in Mountain View, California. A fabless company designs chips but uses an outside foundry to manufacture them. Abrizio’s main product was the TT1 chipset, a high-capacity switching-fabric technology for broadband networking equipment.
Anders Swahn, Abrizio’s president and chief executive, was expected to report directly to PMC-Sierra CEO Bob Bailey after the acquisition. Contemporary coverage said Abrizio’s operation would remain part of the Silicon Valley technology organization rather than being treated as a standalone equipment maker.
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What Abrizio’s switching fabric did
A switching fabric is the internal architecture that moves traffic from a network device’s input ports to its output ports. It is not a complete router or switch; it is a core silicon subsystem that determines how traffic is transferred, arbitrated and scaled inside that equipment.
Target equipment
- Broadband Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switches
- Digital cross-connects that route and reorganize telecommunications traffic
- Terabit-router designs and other high-capacity Internet or carrier-network equipment
The TT1 technology had roots in Stanford University research associated with the Tiny-Tera project, which demonstrated a scalable terabit-per-second switching fabric in CMOS. At the time of the acquisition, Abrizio’s chipset was being manufactured by IBM Microelectronics using a reported 0.25-micron CMOS process. These descriptions identify the intended technology and equipment markets; they do not establish widespread commercial deployment of terabit-per-second systems.
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Additional period background appears in EE Times’ account of the companies’ broadband strategy and its contemporary description of Abrizio’s ATM and WAN-chip role.
Why PMC-Sierra bought Abrizio
PMC-Sierra presented the acquisition as a way to broaden its broadband-infrastructure semiconductor portfolio. Its existing strengths included physical-layer, framing, ATM, SONET, T1/E1 and related networking chips. Abrizio added switching-fabric capability for the core of a network device.
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Core and edge coverage
The strategic distinction was between where the chips operated in the network equipment. PMC-Sierra was more heavily represented in edge, interface and transport functions, while Abrizio supplied technology for the internal core of high-capacity switches and routers. The products therefore addressed overlapping broadband customers without being identical products.
Late-1990s market setting
The deal arrived during rapid investment in Internet backbones and carrier broadband networks. ATM, frame relay, SONET/SDH and digital cross-connects were important technologies in that buildout. Equipment vendors needed faster internal fabrics to move increasing volumes of traffic, making switching silicon a strategic complement to interface and transport chips.
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This was the market language of 1999. It should not be read as a claim that Abrizio was building modern cloud or data-center Ethernet systems, or that the acquisition immediately made PMC-Sierra a router manufacturer.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How the transaction was structured
| Item | Contemporary announcement and completion reports | Later SEC filing |
|---|---|---|
| Headline value | Approximately $400 million in PMC-Sierra stock and related equity consideration | Not restated as a separate cash price |
| Equity count | Approximately 4.35 million PMC-Sierra shares, with warrants and stock options included in the completion description | Approximately 8.704 million common shares exchanged and options assumed |
| Accounting method | Pooling of interests was announced | Pooling of interests confirmed |
| Merger-related costs | Not stated in the news reports | $866,000 recorded in 1999 |
The two share figures should not be treated as interchangeable. The 4.35 million figure appeared in the acquisition announcement and completion coverage. PMC-Sierra’s later filing describes approximately 8.704 million shares exchanged and options assumed, which may reflect a broader treatment of assumed equity instruments or a different accounting presentation. The filing does not make those figures identical, so the discrepancy is best left explicit rather than “reconciled” by guesswork.
The later accounting details are in PMC-Sierra’s SEC Form 10-K filing. The filing says the acquisition was accounted for as a pooling of interests and that prior periods were restated for that treatment.
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Established by the record
- The transaction closed in early September 1999 after the August 24 announcement.
- Consideration was primarily PMC-Sierra equity, with warrants and options described in the completion account.
- Abrizio supplied fabless switching-fabric technology for high-end broadband equipment.
- The acquisition was included in PMC-Sierra’s 1999 results under pooling-of-interests accounting.
Not established by the closing report alone
- Immediate product integration or revenue contribution
- Commercial success, market share or customer wins for TT1
- Deployment of Abrizio technology in widespread terabit systems
- Any later layoffs, product discontinuations or operating outcome
Closing a transaction transfers ownership; it does not by itself demonstrate that the acquired product reached production targets or generated a particular financial return.
Corporate afterlife
The 2002 filing confirms that Abrizio was incorporated into PMC-Sierra’s reported 1999 business and identifies its switching technology. PMC-Sierra was later acquired by Microsemi in 2016, and Microchip acquired Microsemi in 2018. Those later ownership changes provide corporate context, but they do not establish that Abrizio’s TT1 technology caused any subsequent company result. Microchip maintains a historical acquisitions overview.
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