Former 8(a) Firm Is Sold For $180 Million Sierra Monolithics Inc., a former 8(a) company, has agreed to be acquired by Semtech Corp. for $180 million in cash. Sierra, of Irvine, CA, makes chips for optical communications, microwave and wireless products. The company was founded in 1988 by Charles Harper, executive chairman; Binneg Y. Lao, chief scientist; and David Rowe, chief technology officer. Investors include IBM, U.S. Venture Partners and Storm Ventures. The company has 110 employees and expects 2009 revenue of about $50 million. Semtech said Sierra will benefit from growing video traffic over the Internet, competition between cable operators and telecom carriers, cloud computing and wireless data services. “Sierra Monolithics has the benefit of over 20 years of innovation, design and commercialization of high performance Analog ICs and solutions and brings to Semtech a world-class engineering team,” said Semtech CEO Mohan Maheswaran. Harper and Javed Patel, Sierra Monolithics CEO, will become members of the Semtech leadership team after the closing of the transaction. Semtech, of Camarillo, CA, makes chips for consumer devices such as TVs and hand-held devices as well as medical and industrial equipment.