The announcement of the Packetcraft acquisition was made in a context of solid financial results, with Synaptics reporting the third consecutive quarter of both sequential and year-over-year revenue growth. As the Silicon Valley neural network pioneer commented on its other recent strategic transaction with Broadcom - where it expanded its portfolio of next-generation Wi-Fi, ultra-wideband (UWB), and Bluetooth solutions - the announcement of the Packecraft acquisition clearly reinforces Synaptics' position as a full-service supplier of software for Bluetooth and UWB.
As an example, Packecraft was the software supplier for most of the Auracast solutions that are commercially available, including the GN ReSound TV-Streamer+, and the Ampetronic Auri network managed transmitter for multichannel broadcast in large and small spaces, and the Listen Technologies dedicated Auri receiver solution for assistive listening.
Packetcraft, headquartered in San Diego, was founded by a team with extensive embedded protocol expertise, quickly recognized for its Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and subsequent LE Audio stacks, software, and solutions. The company was founded by John Yi (CEO), former engineering director of the BLE software team at Arm, together with Jason Hillyard (VP of Business Development), former founder and CEO of Wicentric. Packetcraft’s leadership in Bluetooth LE began precisely in 2009 with the founding of Wicentric, continued through Arm’s ownership in 2015, and was maintained as the independent company emerged as a leading supplier for LE Audio and Auracast broadcast audio, Bluetooth Channel Sounding, and UWB technologies.
Packetcraft quickly became recognized for its production-ready "baseband to application" embedded Bluetooth LE stacks and software, and the company has been leading the efforts to enable new Bluetooth LE Audio applications, working closely with the Bluetooth SIG on the specification updates. The Packetcraft leadership team will now work with Vikram Gupta, Synaptics SVP of IoT Processors and Chief Product Officer.
Synaptics recently lost its President and CEO, Michael Hurlston, and the company is now actively looking for a replacement, considering both internal and external candidates. With a product portfolio that extends to the Enterprise, Automotive, and Mobile Touch markets, Synaptics continues to see tremendous growth in its Wireless and Processor portfolio. "We believe our new agreement with Broadcom accelerates our Edge AI strategy and further strengthens our leadership in IoT connectivity. As part of the transaction, we expand our portfolio of industry-leading Wi-Fi 8 combo devices that include advanced Bluetooth features, additional Wi-Fi 7 combo devices, ultrawide band (UWB) intellectual property, next-generation GPS/GNSS products, and combo Front-end modules. This transaction solidifies and secures our wireless roadmap for the next five-plus years," stated interim CEO, Ken Rizvi.
Targeting opportunities in the mobile and consumer audio markets, Synaptics will also benefit from a highly skilled team of engineers from Packecraft, positioning the company as "one of the largest and most qualified teams in cutting-edge wireless research and development," as Rizvi described it.
This strategy is being pursued since Synaptics acquired key wireless assets from Broadcom in July 2020, followed by the acquisition of DSP Group in December 2021, and Emza Visual Sense, another Israel-based company specializing in ultra-low-power AI for visual sensing, in October 2022.
"To advance our BLE efforts, we acquired PacketCraft, a provider of advanced embedded BLE software. PacketCraft offers a low-latency and compact software stack, enabling energy-efficient and economically interconnected systems. With our recent transactions, organic development, growing pipeline, and design-win momentum, we continue to remain confident in our Core IoT growth vectors."
In 2023, Synaptics added new products and technologies to its wireless license agreement with Broadcom and extended its original 2020 exclusive rights for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, and Bluetooth Enterprise True Wireless Stereo (TWS) IP. With the new agreement in 2025, Synaptics accelerates its Edge AI strategy with even the latest cutting-edge wireless technologies. Separately, on the Edge AI processor front, Synaptics also announced a collaboration with Google to integrate its latest MLIR-compliant machine learning core with its Astra neural processing engine.
The Packetcraft acquisition, coupled with the company's ongoing organic growth, strengthens Synaptics' position as a key vendor of wireless technologies for connected devices (which the company calls "Core IoT"), reinforcing its long-term growth potential, as denoted by Ken Rizvi, Synaptics’ Interim CEO and Chief Financial Officer. "We continue to see tremendous growth opportunities in Core IoT, specifically in our Wireless and Processor portfolio. As evidenced by our recent Broadcom agreement, our tuck-in acquisition of Packetcraft, Inc., and our Google partnership, we are investing both organically and inorganically to scale and expand capabilities in these high-growth areas."
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