Irvine’s Broadcom Corp. is paying up to $226 million for Global Locate Inc., a San Jose-based maker of global positioning system chips and software.
Broadcom is paying about $146 million now and could pay $80 million more based on Global Locate’s performance.
The boards of both companies have signed off on the deal.
Global Locate was started in 1999 and makes chips and software that use satellites to provide navigation to mobile phones and other devices.
Investors include the venture arm of Germany’s Siemens AG and venture capital firms.
Buying Global Locate adds more than 175 issued and pending U.S. and foreign patents to Broadcom’s portfolio, the company said.
