In terms of location and intelligence, ARM's deal to buy Geomericswould seem to be a no-brainer.

Both companies are based in Cambridge, UK, and full of very smart people who deal with highly technical issues.

Yet there are some differences.

ARM is large company, which designs the chipsets in the majority of mobile devices, while Geomerics is a small company which works with console developers enabling their games to run highly complex lighting.

So where are the syngeries?

Following the transition

"Actually, we've just signed our first deal with a mobile-only game developer," Geomerics' COO Chris Doran is happy to point out.

Although the company hasn't yet formally announced any mobile game partners, it is also known to be working with companies who have been using its Enlighten global illumination lighting system for their console games and are now bringing that experience to their mobile content.

"We're focused on high-end content, and while that means mainly console games, especially the new generation console, as mobile devices become more high-end, we'll be increasingly dealing with them too," Doran explains.

Indeed, as a finger-in-the-air prediction, he says he hopes over 10 percent of Geomerics' business will be with mobile companies by the end of 2014.

Early doors

And it's this switch that's triggered ARM's interest.

"We've worked with Geomerics for a couple of years," says ARM's vice president of partner marketing, Dennis Laudick.

"Our success has come from understanding the entire ecosystem, and in that respect Geomerics is a natural fit, especially in terms of our Mali GPU business. Graphics is all about lighting."

However, both parties stress that the deal won't see any significant changes to Geomerics' business in the short term.

"We'll look to understand the market better and find the syngeries, but the bottomline is we like the technology and we like the business," Laudick ends.