Lam’s novel move
Posted by Tejas Venkatesh on December 15, 2011
Contact: Thejeswi Venkatesh, Brenon Daly At a time when chipmakers are lowering their outlook, citing the economic downturn and the flooding in Thailand, semiconductor equipment maker Lam Research on Wednesday announced its plan to acquire Novellus Systems for $3.3bn in equity. The deal comes a little over a month after Novellus’ primary competitor and industry [...]
Synopsys heats up EDA M&A with Magma buy
Posted by Tejas Venkatesh on December 1, 2011
Contact: Thejeswi Venkatesh After sitting out of the market for the first eight months of the year, Synopsys is suddenly on a buying spree. Having snapped up two smaller players in as many months, the largest electronic design automation (EDA) player has announced a definitive agreement to buy Magma Design Automation for $7.35 per share [...]
Sterling Partners aids Mosaid
Posted by Tejas Venkatesh on October 31, 2011
Contact: Thejeswi Venkatesh Earlier this month, Wi-LAN indicated it would ‘pack up and move on’ if Mosaid Technologies’ shareholders did not accept its sweetened $42 per share unsolicited offer. But in a rather unusual turn of events, it is Mosaid that has moved on. On Friday, the chip technology company announced an agreement with buyout [...]
Chip M&A headed for slowdown
Posted by Tejas Venkatesh on October 13, 2011
-by Thejeswi Venkatesh, Ben Kolada So far, 2011 has been a banner year for semiconductor M&A – the first three quarters have already yielded the highest aggregate spending on chip deals since 2006. But now, the industry seems to be headed for a slowdown. Industry veteran Fairchild Semiconductor recently reported third-quarter revenue of just over [...]
Certainty for some, uncertainty for others
Posted by Tejas Venkatesh on September 23, 2011
Contact: Thejeswi Venkatesh Despite a few high-profile acquisitions recently, some companies have trouble finding buyers. For instance, STX pulled out of contention for Hynix Semiconductor, citing market uncertainties. This was the third time in as many years that the creditors-turned-owners of Hynix, whose revenue mix consists of more than 70% DRAM and about 25% NAND [...]
Braving the IPO market
Posted by Tejas Venkatesh on September 16, 2011
Contact: Thejeswi Venkatesh While the IPO pipeline is getting drier, GCT Semiconductor has taken the contrarian route, filing paperwork for its proposed $100m offering. The company, a fabless designer and supplier of 4G mobile system-on-a-chip semiconductor solutions, has seen revenue triple from 2009 to $68.64m. With the mobile industry transitioning to 4G to handle the [...]
The ball is rolling in semiconductor networking M&A
Posted by Ben Kolada on September 13, 2011
Contact: Ben Kolada, Thejeswi Venkatesh In announcing its largest-ever deal, and paying a princely price at the same time, Broadcom is keeping the ball rolling in semiconductor networking M&A. The company’s nearly $4bn pickup of NetLogic Microsystems comes less than two months after rival Intel announced a smaller strategic play of its own, and it [...]
Microsemi opens the hostilities
Posted by Brenon Daly on August 18, 2011
Contact: Brenon Daly In a bear-hug letter last month, Microsemi warned fellow chipmaker Zarlink Semiconductor that it was ready to ‘take all necessary actions’ to consolidate the Canadian company. On Wednesday, that came to pass: Microsemi said it would bypass Zarlink’s board, which shot down the unsolicited offer, and take its $549m all-cash bid directly [...]
Dual track, but singular outcomes
Posted by Brenon Daly on July 21, 2011
Contact: Brenon Daly For the third time in just two months, a tech company that had planned to go public has instead ended up inside a company that’s already public. The latest dual-track sale came Wednesday when Force10 Networks opted to accept a bid from Dell rather than see through its IPO plan. The networking [...]
Intel buys Fulcrum to further datacenter product push
Posted by admin on July 19, 2011
Contact: Thejeswi Venkatesh, Ben Kolada In a move that further boosts its 10-Gigabit Ethernet push, Intel has announced that it will acquire Fulcrum Microsystems, a fabless semiconductor company that developed the fully integrated FocalPoint family of 10Gb and 40Gb Ethernet switch chips. The acquisition advances Intel’s desire to transform itself into a comprehensive datacenter provider [...]
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