Japanese electronics firm Renesas has acquired Israeli smart wifi provider Celeno Communications for ¥35.9bn, roughly $315m.

The acquisition enhances Renesas’ connectivity portfolio with the addition of Celeno’s wifi technologies and software expertise.

Headquartered in Israel, Celeno offers wireless communications, including wifi chipsets and software, for home networks, smart buildings, enterprise and industrial markets. Its most compact chipsets for Wifi 6 and 6E deliver wifi network performance and increased security with low latency and low power consumption.

Celeno’s breakthrough wifi doppler imaging technology, a wifi-based, high-resolution imaging technology, is suitable for home elderly care and assisted living, home security, safe driving and digital and connected factories. It depicts, tracks and analyses the motion, behaviour and location of people and objects using standard wifi, eliminating the need for multiple cameras or sensors in home environments and commercial buildings.

Renesas produces low-power MCU, MPU and SoC processors, wireless ICs, sensors and power management technologies. Celeno’s field-proven wifi and software capabilities complement these. The combination creates end-to-end embedded options for addressing low-power connectivity in IoT, infrastructure, industrial and automotive applications.

The acquisition also increases Renesas’ engineering and design scale with Celeno’s design centre in Israel and R&D staff based in Israel, Ukraine, India, China, Taiwan and more. This should strengthen Renesas’ global engineering and software development talent base, allowing Renesas to bring more seamless and expanded services to its customers around the globe.

“The transaction underscores our continuous commitment to improve performance and efficiency in electronic systems,” said Hidetoshi Shibata, CEO of Renesas. “Building on our recently-expanded connectivity portfolio following the Dialog acquisition, the addition of Celeno provides us with more advanced wifi connectivity capabilities to deliver end-to-end connectivity for both clients and access points. Renesas is now strongly positioned to capitalise on the growing opportunities from the massive rise in connectivity and requirements created by today’s increasingly connected world.”

Gilad Rozen, CEO of Celeno, added: “This is a compelling transaction for both our customers and employees. Our depth and strength in connectivity combined with Renesas’ industry leading portfolio of embedded solutions will allow us, together, to open up new growth areas we can target. Renesas will also provide us with the go-to-market capabilities to bring Celeno to a broader range of customers.”

The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close by the end of this year, subject to customary closing conditions.