Variscite achieved a Company Value of $250 million

The Lod-based (near Tel aviv) Variscite achieved a valuation of $250 million as part of a transaction in which Telsys Ltd. increases its holdings in the company. Telsys has announced that it will acquire 2.31% of Variscite’s shares for approximately $5.78 million. Prior to the transaction, Telsys held 68.4% of Variscite’s shares. The second-largest shareholder in the company is Arledan Technologies, which holds 20.3% of its shares.

During Q3 2020, Variscite’s sales totaled NIS 49.99 million, compared with NIS 42.76 million last year. Telsys reported that the growth stemmed from increased demand for the production of products related to the COVID-19 crisis. To tackle the COVID-19 crisis, Variscite had increased its inventories by NIS 11 million to ensure orders were not delayed due to supply chain difficulties.

Partnership with NXP

Variscite employs approximately 90 employees and is is developing, producing and manufacturing ARM-based System on Modules (SoM) that meet military, industrial and medical standards. Its modules provide the computing core for other products, such as robotics systems, medical devices, industrial systems, etc. It has a strategic partnership with NXP, which gives it initial access to i.MX processors even before they hit the market.

In September this year, Variscite announced a new card based on the i.MX 8M Plus. It is a family of heterogeneous application core processors based on more than one architecture. It includes quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processors, a single-core ARM Cortex-M7 processor for real-time processing applications, a neural network accelerator (Vivante VIP8000), a DSP processor for audio signal processing, and two built-in image signal processors (ISPs).

In the first nine months of 2020, its sales amounted to NIS 148.73 million, compared with sales of NIS 130.42 million in the corresponding period last year. Variscite’s parent company, Telsys, is still battling the consequences of the discontinuation of work vis-à-vis Texas Instruments (TI), which has decided to stop working with most of the distributors in the world and focus mainly on direct sales. In the third quarter of 2020, sales in its distribution segment amounted to NIS 26.5 million, compared with sales of NIS 34.5 million last year. Telsys is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange at a market value of approximately NIS 826 million.

Arrow Israel provides Computing Boards equipped with Cellular & GNSS Modules made by Quectel

Sponsored by Arrow

Arrow Israel has announced the expansion of its collaboration with Quectel Wireless Solutions, which provides cellular modules in G5, LTE, LTE-A, LPWA, C-V2X, GSM / GPRS, UMTS / HSPA technologies, smart modules and GNSS modules. Arrow Electronics, in collaboration with Shiratech Solutions, has developed several boards for quick addition of Quectel’s modules to development boards and systems: boards with an Arduino Shield connection or a 96Borads standard connection. In the coming weeks, Arrow will offer some of Shirhatech’s development boards free of charge.

Cellular Modules

Quectel is considered an IoT leader and provides a one-stop-shop service for cellular modules. There are more than 100 million devices in the world that contain at least one Quectel module. The rate doubles every year. The company provides a wide range of 4G modules in CAT1 to CAT20 categories, in various configurations of MiniPCIE, LGA and M.2. Quectel also launched a series of two 5G families for Sub 6G and for mmWave, based Qualcomm processors.

GNSS and Smart Modules

Quectel provides a variety of GNSS products, including High Precision Location and Timing, Dead Reckoning, Multi-frequency receivers, Multi-constellation support, Raw Data and more. It includes also Android and Linux-based complete modules (Qualcomm processors, RAM, Flash, Cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth). The modules come with a software platform that simplifies and shortens development time and reduces the total cost of design.

Service in Israel

Quectel operates a local office that provides direct response and consulting, planning, sales and testing services tailored to the communications service providers demands around the world.

Shiratech development boards with Quectel cellular modules

In the coming weeks, Arrow Israel will provide, free of charge, some of the boards developed by Shiratech, which include the modules of Quectel. This includes one of the following boards:

For more information on Quectel’s solutions and to obtain a development board – contact Arrow’s Field Application Engineer Ofir Czyzewski or to Arrow’s FAE team.