Ramtron scores a Goal

Colorado Springs-based non-volatile FRAM developer

has bought

, a privately held, fabless semiconductor manufacturer based in

, in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $7.6 million.

Ramtron believes that its business combination with Goal will enable the company to accelerate its product development plans for analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) and provide customers with an expanded portfolio of FRAM-enabled data acquisition, signal processing and microcontroller devices.

Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, Ramtron paid approximately $2.0 million in cash and $5.6 million in Ramtron common stock to acquire all of the outstanding securities of Goal.

For the stock portion of the consideration, Ramtron issued approximately 1,950,000 new common shares. As a result of the transaction, Ramtron now has approximately 24.4 million common shares outstanding.

The acquisition of Goal is expected to add approximately $1.2 million per year to Ramtron's operating expenses and to become accretive to Ramtron's earnings in 2006, as products resulting from the combination are commercialised.

As a result of the acquisition, Ramtron now has a total of 107 full-time employees, up from 88.