Ramtron Buys Goal Semiconductor

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Aug. 30 -- Ramtron International Corp., a developer and supplier of nonvolatile ferroelectric semiconductors, including ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) products, today announced its acquisition of Goal Semiconductor Inc., a privately held, fabless semiconductor manufacturer based in Montreal, Canada, 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 and provide customers with an expanded portfolio of FRAM-enabled data acquisition, signal processing and microcontroller devices.

Under the terms of the agreement, Ramtron paid approximately $2 million in cash and $5.6 million in Ramtron common stock to acquire all of Goal's outstanding securities. For the stock portion, Ramtron issued approximately 1.95 million new common shares. As a result of the transaction, which closed on August 29, 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, including costs associated with maintaining offices in Canada and increased payroll (Ramtron now has a total of 107 full-time employees, up from 88).

Ramtron also announced today that it is in the process of securing a $3-million 36-month term loan facility from Silicon Valley Bank, which the company expects will be approved in September. Ramtron plans to make additional details and information about the acquisition available on its Web site; for more information, visit: www.ramtron.com/ramtronandgoal