OmniVision To Buy Wafer-Level Lens Operation

SANTA CLARA, CA /PRNewswire/ -- OmniVision Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: OVTI), a leading developer of advanced digital imaging solutions, announced that it has entered into an agreement with VisEra Technologies Company, Ltd., or VisEra, OmniVision's joint venture with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited, or TSMC, to acquire from VisEra its wafer-level lens production operations. OmniVision currently outsources the wafer-level lens production and assembly processes associated with its CameraCube technology to VisEra. The cash consideration for the operations is $45 million. OmniVision anticipates that the parties will close the transaction in the second quarter of its fiscal year 2012.

"We believe that our CameraCube technology represents one area where we can extend our market leadership while increasing the content that we sell into each consumer device," said Shaw Hong, chief executive officer of OmniVision Technologies, Inc. "Historically, sensor and lens manufacturing have been separate endeavors in which the components come together at the modular assembly stage. Our CameraCube technology enables us to design our sensors and accompanying lens elements as an integrated unit that creates a reflowable, monolithic image sensor device. This transaction will enable us to further streamline the production process, consolidate the supply chain, expand production capacity, and reduce the cost to meet customers' growing demand for our CameraCube products."

About OmniVision
OmniVision Technologies (NASDAQ: OVTI) is a leading developer of advanced digital imaging solutions. Its award-winning CMOS imaging technology enables superior image quality in many of today's consumer and commercial applications, including mobile phones, notebooks, tablets, webcams, digital still and video cameras, security and surveillance, entertainment devices, automotive and medical imaging systems.