Western Digital grabs SSD firm

SiliconSystems will immediately be rebranded as WD Solid-State Storage business unit

Hard drive storage vendor Western Digital has completed a $65m (£45.5m) cash acquisition of solid state drive (SSD) vendor SiliconSystems.

Integration of the California-based company starts immediately with SiliconSystems becoming known as WD Solid-State Storage business unit. It will sit alongside WD’s existing Branded Products, Client Storage, Consumer Storage and Enterprise Storage business units.

Michael Hajeck, founder and chief executive of SiliconSystems, now senior vice president and general manager of WD’s Solid-State Storage business unit, said: “WD’s strong balance sheet, sales reach, and operations and logistics capabilities will allow us to greatly accelerate our penetration of existing markets, while combining our engineering expertise with WD.

“This will enable us to develop new solid-state drives to broaden our overall product portfolio and address the emerging applications for solid-state storage in WD’s existing customer base.”

SiliconSystems’ portfolio includes solid-state drives with SATA, EIDE, PC Card, USB and CF interfaces in 2.5in, 1.8in, CF and other form factors.

The vendor also provides data security and protection through its patented and patent-pending PowerArmor, SiSMART, SolidStor and SiSecure technologies.

John Coyne, president and chief executive of WD, said: “The combination will be modestly accretive to revenue and margins as a result of SiliconSystems’ existing position as a trusted supplier to the well-established $400m market for embedded solid-state drives.

“SiliconSystems’ intellectual property and technical expertise will significantly accelerate WD’s solid-state drive development programmes for the netbook, client and enterprise markets, providing greater choice for our customers to satisfy all their storage requirements.”