Lucent Buys Chip Maker for $50 Million

Murray Hill, N.J.--Lucent Technologies Inc., the world’s largest phone-equipment maker, agreed to buy closely held Enable Semiconductor, a maker of chips for corporate computer networks, for $50 million in cash.

Lucent said it will take a charge to write down in-process research and development at Enable, based in Milpitas, Calif. The purchase is expected to close later this month.

Enable’s chips are used in switches that direct data traffic on the networks. The purchase gives New Jersey-based Lucent chips for its own switches, as well as a broader line of products to sell to rival networking-equipment makers like Cisco Systems Inc. and 3Com Corp.

The market for the switches is expected to grow 24% a year to $1.6 billion in 2002, according to Dataquest.