Ambarella Buys Italy's VisLab For $30 Mln

(RTTNews) - Ambarella, Inc. (AMBA), a developer of video compression and image processing semiconductors, said Wednesday that it has bought privately held Italian company VisLab S.r.l. for $30 million in cash.

VisLab, the Vision and Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the University of Parma, is a pioneer in perception systems and autonomous vehicle research and was founded by Professor Alberto Broggi.

The company has developed computer vision and intelligent control systems for automotive and other commercial applications, including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and several generations of autonomous vehicle driving systems. These include "Porter," an autonomous vehicle that made a 13,000 km autonomous trip from Italy to China in 2010.

VisLab's 27 researchers will join Ambarella's advanced computer vision development team.