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Lucent Technologies agreed on January 20, 2000, to buy Austin startup Agere for about $415 million in Lucent stock. The deal gave Lucent programmable network-processor technology and engineering expertise; Lucent completed the acquisition on April 20, 2000. Agere later became the name of Lucent’s microelectronics business and was spun off in 2002.
What Lucent was buying
Agere, founded in 1998, was developing programmable chips designed to handle networking tasks. A network processor is optimized for work such as processing and moving packets through network equipment; it is not a single standardized chip architecture. Forbes’ 2000 explanation of network processors provides period context for the term.
When Lucent announced the deal, Agere’s first network processor had been introduced less than six months earlier, and the startup had two more processors planned, according to EE Times’ January 2000 report. Lucent said the acquisition would add network-processor capability to its Microelectronics Group as equipment makers sought programmable packet-processing technology for next-generation networks.
Lucent’s performance claim
Ed Roberts, then vice president and general manager of Lucent’s Networks and Communications unit, said Agere’s technology could move packets 25 times faster than “current programmable processor technology.” That was Lucent’s claim in the announcement, not an independently verified benchmark. The available evidence does not establish a later, independently measured product result.
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Price, accounting and the processor program
EE Times reported the agreed consideration as about $415 million in Lucent stock. Lucent’s subsequent acquisition-accounting disclosure recorded $94 million of acquired in-process research and development for a fully programmable, multiprotocol OC-48 network processor. The filing identifies OC-48 as 2.5 gigabits per second. The $94 million is an accounting allocation for the processor development effort, not the total acquisition price.
Lucent’s purchase-accounting disclosure also projected product revenue of $21 million in 2001 and $65 million in 2002 for the OC-48 product. Those were forecasts made at the time, not reported realized sales. The disclosure’s figures and deal completion date appear in Lucent’s acquisition-accounting filing.
Timeline: agreement, completion and spin-off
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| January 20, 2000 | Lucent announced its agreement to acquire Agere for about $415 million in stock. Contemporary reporting said completion was expected by July. |
| April 20, 2000 | Lucent completed the acquisition, according to its acquisition-accounting disclosure. |
| 2000 | Lucent’s annual report described Agere Systems as the planned new name for its microelectronics business. |
| April 2001 | Agere Systems held an initial public offering, as later recorded in Lucent’s SEC filing. |
| June 1, 2002 | Lucent completed the spin-off of Agere, distributing its remaining shares to Lucent shareholders. |
The corporate name and separation followed the 2000 purchase; they were not part of the original acquisition transaction. Lucent’s SEC filing on the Agere spin-off records the June 2002 distribution and the earlier IPO. Its 2000 annual report identifies Agere Systems as the planned name for the microelectronics business.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to read the deal’s market context
Forbes quoted an IDC estimate that processing semiconductors for certain equipment segments—MPU, ASIC and NPU—would grow from $1.7 billion in 1999 to $2.7 billion in 2002. Those estimates covered the cited processing-semiconductor segments together; they should not be mistaken for the network-processor market alone or treated as current market figures. They help explain the period’s interest in the technology, but do not establish that Agere’s products achieved Lucent’s forecast sales or performance.
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