TAINAN, Taiwan, April 13, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Himax Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:HIMX) (“Himax” or “Company”), a leading supplier and fabless manufacturer of display drivers and other semiconductor products, today announced that it has made a strategic investment in cash in exchange for a 45.1% equity ownership of Emza Visual Sense Ltd. (“Emza”), with a one-year option to acquire the remaining 54.9% of Emza’s equity and all outstanding stock options. Purchase price to acquire the remaining equity and all outstanding stock options of Emza if Himax elects to exercise the one-year option includes an all-cash initial purchase amount, along with earnout payments contingent on the performance of Emza. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.
Emza Visual Sense Ltd. is an Israeli company dedicated to the development of extremely efficient visual sensors that include proprietary machine-vision algorithms and specific architectures that deliver always-on visual sensing capabilities, achieving orders of magnitude improvement in power consumption.
“This strategic investment in Emza compliments our previously announced ultra low power CMOS image sensor product and initiatives in delivering turn-key solutions for ‘always-on’ smart camera that enables devices capable of real-time contextual awareness, such as face detection and human presence detection and motion,” said Jordan Wu, CEO of Himax. “Together, we can transform our AoS sensor from a simple ‘image capturing device’ to an ‘information analytics device’ that offers significantly more value to our customers. This exciting new computer vision market demands highly efficient sensors, algorithms, camera and processor architectures capable of delivering extremely low power consumption in a small form factor so that it can be easily integrated into TVs and smartphones, as well as AR/VR, IoT, and AI devices.”
“Our partnership with Himax, who shares our vision of sub-milliwatt always-on visual sensors, provides Emza with access to a unique technology of ultra low-power CMOS and semi-conductors,” said Yoram Zylberberg, CEO of Emza. “Achieving the breakthrough of advanced computer vision at ultra low-power consumption requires tight integration between the silicon and algorithms. Our partnership with Himax gives us the opportunity to efficiently achieve and commercialize these breakthroughs.”
About Emza Visual Sense Ltd.
Emza Visual Sense Ltd. is dedicated to the development of integrated, autonomous, miniature machine-vision devices for automatic scene interpretation of the visual world around us. Emza’s technology includes proprietary algorithms and architectures that attempt to mimic what we know of how vision challenges are solved in nature. Emza’s technology explores the limits of what can be achieved with minimal resolution, frame rate, processing power, power consumption and cost.
About Himax Technologies, Inc.
Himax Technologies, Inc. (HIMX) is a fabless semiconductor solution provider dedicated to display imaging processing technologies. Himax is a worldwide market leader in display driver ICs and timing controllers used in TVs, laptops, monitors, mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, car navigation, virtual reality (VR) devices and many other consumer electronics devices. Additionally, Himax designs and provides controllers for touch sensor displays, in-cell Touch and Display Driver Integration (TDDI) single-chip solutions, LED driver ICs, power management ICs, scaler products for monitors and projectors, tailor-made video processing IC solutions, silicon IPs and LCOS micro-displays for augmented reality (AR) devices and heads-up displays (HUD) for automotive. The Company also offers digital camera solutions, including CMOS image sensors and wafer level optics for AR devices, 3D depth scanning and machine vision, which are used in a wide variety of applications such as mobile phone, tablet, laptop, TV, PC camera, automobile, security, medical devices and Internet of Things. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Tainan, Taiwan, Himax currently employs over 2,100 people from three Taiwan-based offices in Tainan, Hsinchu and Taipei and country offices in China, Korea, Japan and the US. Himax has 2,982 patents granted and 420 patents pending approval worldwide as of March 31st, 2017. Himax has retained its position as the leading display imaging processing semiconductor solution provider to consumer electronics brands worldwide.
Forward Looking Statements
Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially include, but not limited to, general business and economic conditions and the state of the semiconductor industry; market acceptance and competitiveness of the driver and non-driver products developed by the Company; demand for end-use applications products; reliance on a small group of principal customers; the uncertainty of continued success in technological innovations; our ability to develop and protect our intellectual property; pricing pressures including declines in average selling prices; changes in customer order patterns; changes in estimated full-year effective tax rate; shortages in supply of key components; changes in environmental laws and regulations; exchange rate fluctuations; regulatory approvals for further investments in our subsidiaries; our ability to collect accounts receivable and manage inventory and other risks described from time to time in the Company's SEC filings, including those risks identified in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in its Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2016 filed with the SEC, as may be amended.
Company Contacts:
Yoram Zylberberg, CEO
Emza Visual Sense Ltd.
Email: yoram@emza-vs.com
http://www.emza-vs.com
Jackie Chang, CFO
Himax Technologies, Inc.
Tel: +886-2-2370-3999 Ext.22300
Or
US Tel: +1-949-585-9838 Ext.252
Fax: +886-2-2314-0877
Email: jackie_chang@himax.com.tw
www.himax.com.tw
Penny Lin, Investor Relations
Himax Technologies, Inc.
Tel: +886-2-2370-3999 Ext.22320
Fax: +886-2-2314-0877
Email: penny_lin@himax.com.tw
www.himax.com.tw
Investor Relations - US Representative
Greg Falesnik, Managing Director
MZ North America
Tel: +1-212-301-7130
Email: greg.falesnik@mzgroup.us
www.mzgroup.us