Irish software design firm Silansys Technologies is close to being acquired by Frontier Silicon, the British firm leading the market in chips for digital radio.

The sale is believed to be worth €6 million and was delayed from yesterday until next week. A source said yesterday that, bar a few minor issues, the deal was "as good as done".

Silansys's flagship product, MoMedia, is aimed at reducing power cost in the next generation of mobiles and PDAs, and Frontier has announced its intention to supply chips for low-power mobile digital televisions.

With that aim in mind, and following the success of its technology in DAB radio where its fabless semiconductors are used in 70 per cent of sets, last month Frontier closed a €22 million investment round that was led by Irish venture capital (VC) firm ACT.

Frontier chief executive and founder Anthony Sethill said at the time: "The convergence of mobile communications and broadcasting is happening now, and I believe that the addition of low-power TV tuners to mobile handsets will enable the next killer application for mobile phones, opening up significant new revenue opportunities for content providers and network operators.

"Frontier Silicon's objective is to be one of the key chip suppliers to this new market sector," he said.

Like Frontier, Silansys was founded in 2002 by Niall Ó hEarcain and Conor McAuliffe, two former technical directors at Irish chip-design firm Parthus.

Silansys was set up to offer large semiconductor firms such as Frontier design test and application support. It approached several VC firms last year about raising funding but decided to hold off until it was fully confident of its product.

MoMedia is a polyphonic sound synthesizer which is at an advanced stage of development.