Selling storage

, a provider of high-speed broadband communications and storage semiconductors, has entered into an agreement with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Silver Lake Partners to acquire the storage semiconductor business of

for approximately $425 million in cash.

The storage semiconductor business is part of Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group, which KKR and Silver Lake Partners are in the process of acquiring.

According to a statement, the acquisition ‘significantly strengthens PMC-Sierra's position in the storage semiconductor market and creates one of the industry's most complete end-to-end enterprise storage silicon solutions’.

The storage semiconductor business of Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group (SPG) is a long-term technology leader in Fibre Channel protocol controllers with its Tachyon product line and is developing next-generation multi-protocol controllers supporting Fibre Channel and SAS/SATA/iSCSI storage systems, as well as other storage-related products. When closed, the acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive for PMC-Sierra.

The business being acquired by PMC-Sierra, which currently operates as the I/O Solutions Division of Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group, employs approximately 240 employees and has design centres located in Santa Clara, Roseville (CA), and Singapore.

PMC's acquisition is expected to close in January 2006, subsequent to the expected closing on or near December 1, 2005 of a previously announced transaction in which KKR and Silver Lake Partners will acquire SPG from Agilent.