Precision timing company SiTime has announced the acquisition of Renesas’ timing business in a cash and stock deal worth almost $3 billion.

The board of directors of both companies has unanimously approved the transaction, which is expected to be finalized by the end of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

In addition to the acquisition, the companies have also signed a memorandum of understanding to explore integrating SiTime’s MEMS-based chips into Japanese chipmaker Renesas’ embedded computing products.

Per a statement from the companies, in the 12 months following the close of the transaction, the combined business is expected to generate $300 million in revenue, with SiTime set to “substantially” increase its scale across its customer and product portfolio and strengthen its financial profile, as a result of the deal.

The acquisition will also see SiTime gain “highly complementary clocking products,” such as clock generators, buffers, network synchronizers, and jitter attenuators, the company added.

“This acquisition is a monumental milestone toward fulfilling our vision to transform the timing market and solve our customers’ toughest timing challenges,” said Rajesh Vashist, chairman and CEO of SiTime. “With Renesas’ timing business, we will increase our clocking portfolio by more than 10x and extend our reach in the fastest growing applications in the timing market, including comms, enterprise, and data center.

“Notably, these applications are expected to represent more than 60 percent of SiTime’s revenue, post-acquisition. We are confident that the acquisition will deliver exceptional value for our shareholders as we build on our strong record of financial performance, as underscored by our 2025 results announced today.”

Hidetoshi Shibata, CEO of Renesas, added: “This transaction allows Renesas to sharpen its focus on embedded compute leadership while ensuring our customers have access to SiTime’s cutting-edge MEMS timing technology. We look forward to exploring opportunities for strategic collaboration with SiTime to deliver integrated solutions that power the next generation of intelligent devices that demand performance and efficiency.”

Founded in 2025 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, SiTime offers oscillator, clock, and resonator products to help devices – including those inside data centers and wireless networks – keep time. The company’s main offerings are silicon MEMS-based programmable precision timing chip components.

SiTime launched its Chorus family of clock-system-on-a-chip solutions in April 2024, followed by its SiT5977 Super-TCXO offering in January 2025, the latter being a single-chip timing solution for AI compute nodes.

In November 2023, SiTime entered into an exclusive agreement with Aura Semiconductor to acquire its clock products and license all of its clock IP. The $148 million deal saw SiTime hold exclusive, perpetual, and irrevocable rights to sell existing and new products based on Aura’s IP and clocking portfolio.

Renesas was founded in 2010 when NEC’s chip division merged with Renesas Technology, itself the product of a merger between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric’s chip operations. In February 2024, the company acquired printed circuit board (PCB) company Altium for $5.9 billion, the third multi-billion-dollar purchase for Renesas following its 2016 purchase of chipmaker Intersil for $3.2bn; 2018 acquisition of Integrated Device Technology for $6.7bn; and 2021 purchase of Dialog Semiconductor for $5.9bn.

DCD interviewed SiTime in its latest magazine edition. Learn more about the importance of time-keeping to data centers and networking here