Electronics manufacturer Sanmina-SCI Corp. wants to expand its server capabilities by buying server maker Newisys Inc.
Sanmina-SCI, of San Jose, Calif., on Thursday announced an agreement to buy Newisys, which has focused on building servers armed with Advanced Micro Devices Inc.s 64-bit Opteron chip. Financial terms of the deal—which the companies expect to complete within the next few days—were not disclosed.
According to Sanmina-SCI, Newisys, based in Austin, Texas, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary. Sanmina-SCI officials said Newisys will give them stronger expertise in building enterprise-class server products, particularly ones that can ease a business migration from 32-bit to 64-bit computing.
Opteron, based on x86 architecture, can run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. In response, Intel Corp., of Santa Clara, Calif., also is offering a 32-bit emulation layer in its new 64-bit chip, Itanium 2 6M, to enable businesses run 32-bit applications on Itanium systems.
“With the expected growth in the enterprise server market and our companies combined design, engineering, manufacturing and global no-touch order fulfillment capability and experience, we have a real opportunity to capitalize on the markets migration from 32-bit to 64-bit designs,” Newisys CEO Phil Hester said in a prepared statement.
Sanmina-SCI, which builds products for OEMs—IBM earlier this year announced that it had signed a $3.6 billion deal to have Sanmina-SCI build the bulk of its eServer xSeries systems and IntelliStation workstations, a year after IBM contracted with Sanmina-SCI to build its desktop PCS—said Newisys will be added to the companys enterprise manufacturing services.
“The addition of Newisys to the Sanmina-SCI family strengthens our continuing support of the enterprise computing and storage systems market segment,” Sanmina-SCI President and Chief Operating Officer Randy Furr said in a prepared statement.