Linear Technology announced the acquisition of Dust Networks, a provider of low power wireless sensor network (WSN) technology. The acquisition of Dust Networks, based in Hayward, CA, will enable Linear to offer a complete wireless sensor networking solution. Dust Networks’ low power radio and software technology complements Linear’s strengths in industrial instrumentation, power management and energy harvesting technology.

“Smart Dust” was first conceived by Dr. Kris Pister, founder and chief technologist of Dust Networks, as a way to deploy intelligent wireless sensors. Dust Networks pioneered SmartMesh networks that comprise a self-forming mesh of nodes, or “motes,” which collect and relay data, and a network manager that monitors and manages network performance and sends data to the host application. This technology is now the basis for a number of seminal networking standards.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Although there will be some transaction related costs, Dust’s ongoing results are not expected to be material in the short term to Linear’s financial statements.