Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. is paying $47.5 million for a British maker of chips designed to let people pay for things using their cells phones, among other uses.
Broadcom is buying Innovision Research & Technology PLC, which makes chips that allow for what is known as near field communication, or the wireless exchange of data within a matter of inches.
The company is paying cash for Innovision. The deal values Innovision at about 80% more than its British shares were at before the offer.
Broadcom expects the deal to close in the third quarter.
The deal is designed to get Broadcom into chips that allow cell phones to interact with payment readers, electronic ads and others uses.
Innovision’s chips are touted as a way for people to make purchases by waving their cell phones in front of an electronic reader and having the purchase debited from a bank account or charged to a credit card.
The technology also could be used to send coupons and offers to cell phones as a shopper walks around a store or mall.
The acquisition suggests Broadcom is expecting phone makers to adopt near field communication, which up to now hasn’t been widely used.
Broadcom already makes chips for a number of wireless networking technologies, as well as for networking and consumer electronics.
The pending buy is one of a handful of smaller deals Broadcom’s made of late. The company had $1.5 billion in cash as of March 31.
In February, Broadcom paid $123 million to Petaluma-based Teknovus Inc., a maker of networking chips.
