LSI Logic to Buy Agere, a Rival Chip Maker
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LSI Logic hopes the deal, valued at $4 billion, will help it compete in the competitive market for data storage.
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German chip maker Infineon Technologies has agreed to buy Texas Instruments' DSL Customer Premises Equipment (CPE)Â business in a deal expected to close by the end of the summer, the companies said.
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AMD and IBM are extending a deal which has seen them co-operating on chip-making technology since 2002. The deal was due to end next year it will now run until December 2008.
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(InfoWorld) - Chip vendor LSIÂ has warned investors of a revenue shortfall and said it would eliminate 900 jobs andÂ sell off its consumer products businessÂ as part of a plan to cut costs following its AprilÂ merger with Agere. LSI did not disclose how much money it would get for selling the consumer products division. However, late Wednesday the company revealed the buyer as Magnum Semiconductor, of Milpitas, California, a vendor of chips and software for consumer entertainment devices like DVD recorders, digital camcorders, and portable video players. Magnum will fund the purchase through a private-equity investment and expects to close the deal in the third quarter. The deal will also lead LSI to shrink its work force further, since Magnum plans to offer jobs to a "significant number" of LSI's consumer workers. The changes are part of the first stage in a three-phase corporate reorganization designed to reduce operating expenses and improve LSI's profit margin in the chip business, according to a statement from LSI President and CEO Abhi Talwalkar. In May,Â LSI warned investorsÂ that it was seeking a buyer for its consumer division, which makes chips for DVD recorders, set-top boxes and personal media players. "We are accelerating our timetable for aligning the resources of the new LSI with market opportunities," Talwalkar said in a release. "Today's actions will position the company to improve our gross margins in the semiconductor business." The new layoffs will affect 13 percent of LSI workers across all global business departments, excluding the chip packaging and testing workers in former Agere plants in Bangkok and in Singapore, LSI spokesman Robert Guenther said Thursday. Despite the new savings, LSI warned investors that its revenue was lower than expected, and reduced its forecast for second-quarter revenue for the period ending June 30, 2007, to a range of $650 million to $670 million, compared to its original forecast of $715 million to $745 million. The new number would produce a quarterly net loss of between $0.43 and $0.52 per share, a greater loss than the original goal of $0.40 to $0.49 per share. LSI is scheduled to announce its quarterly earnings on July 25. LSI, of Milpitas, California, traded $4 billion of its stock to merge with Agere, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in a deal that closed April 2. The merger combined LSI's strength in making chips for enterprise storage and telecommunications with Agere's experience in manufacturing chips for cell phone handsets and the hard drives in consumer PCs. Together, the combined companies had 9,100 employees and predicted annual revenue of $3.5 billion. Â
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said Wednesday it has gained approval from key U.S., Canadian, and German antitrust regulators for itsÂ $5.4 billion plan to buyÂ Canadian chip set developer ATI Technologies.
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Nvidia is buying graphics vendor Ageia Technologies, developer of the PhysX gaming engine.
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Advanced Micro Devices and IBM will work together to devise chip-manufacturing technology for three additional years, a deal that will bring about a quarter of a billion to IBM over four years and give AMD access to cutting-edge chip inventions.
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(InfoWorld) - Emulex will buy Sierra LogicÂ to build a bigger enterprise storage portfolio. Emulex said Tuesday it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Sierra Logic for $180 million to expand its position in the embedded storage components market. The acquisition will combine two suppliers of network storage components and may improve the reliability of storage networks that enterprise customers depend on. Sierra's line of embedded bridges and routers will join Emulex's portfolio of embedded switches and multiple protocol input/output controllers. The combination will make Emulex more competitive in selling to storage system makers, said Mike Smith, Emulex's executive vice president for worldwide marketing. Emulex's current customers include Sun Microsystems, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, and Network Appliance. "There is always a trend toward integration, and you can offer more integrated solutions the more pieces you provide. It makes you more of a single, trusted supplier," Smith said. The deal gives Emulex access to key technology developed by Sierra Logic to make SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) storage systems more reliable, said storage industry analyst Arun Taneja, founder of The Taneja Group, in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Fibre Channel disk drives are used in high-end storage environments, while SATA drives are a lower cost alternative. But SATA drives are less reliable than Fibre Channel. Sierra Logic's technology makes SATA more reliable, Taneja said. "Sierra makes a SATA drive look like a Fibre Channel drive but maintains the price advantage of SATA," said Taneja. "Emulex looked at the technology and said 'It's too important to this industry. I want to own it.'" Consistent with its integration strategy, Emulex also acquired Arohi Communications, a maker of data center networking and intelligent storage platforms, in May for $39 million. The Sierra Logic deal is expected to be completed by Sept. 30 and to contribute an incremental $8 million to $10 million in revenues to Emulex in the fourth quarter. Emulex, based in Costa Mesa, California, has about 600 employees worldwide, while Sierra Logic, based in Roseville, California, has 70 employees. Smith expects most of them to come to Emulex, including Sierra Logic Chief Executive Officer Bob Whitson.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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LSI Logic Corp's subsidiary Engenio Information Technologies Inc has got its foot in the door at Dell Inc, which has committed to taking on Engenio as a rival to EMC Corp in the supply of low-end disk arrays, according to sources close to the companies.
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ARM Holdings, the UK microchip designer, has agreed to buy American technology firm Artisan Components in a cash and shares deal worth Â£500 million, although some analysts fear it may have dug too deep.
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Chipmaker will pay Big Blue nearly $300 million, but move should help in competition with Intel.
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Now that AMD owns ATI, it will still supply graphics chips for PCs based on rival Intel CPUs.
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Advanced Micro Devices is counting on a new high-performance computer chip to hold on to hard-fought market share it has won from its principal rival, Intel.
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Intel will join with STMicroelectronics, a Swiss semiconductor maker, to form a new company to sell flash memory chips.
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'Combining of interests' Long standing semiconductor specialist LSI Logic, which leads in the provision of chips which underpin enterprise high end storage systems, has merged with Agere Systems, a company with a similar product set, in a deal valued at around $4bn.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) is moving fast to complete a planned acquisition of ATI Technologies Inc., offering US$1.7 million in salary and bonuses to hire the graphics card vendor's chief executive officer, David Orton. Retaining Orton could help AMD to reach its stated goal of building a single platform to boost its performance in media and data processing and to build a stronger presence in the consumer digital media market, AMD said whenÂ it announced the $5.4 billion offer in July. AMD hopes to build electronics that combine its microprocessors with ATI's GPUs (graphics processing units), and thus maintain its momentum in nibbling away at the market share of rival, Intel Corp. So the company offered Orton a job as senior vice president of the planned 14,900-person company, according to papers filed Wednesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. AMD also reported this week that government officials on Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission had approved the deal. AMD expects to clear all other hurdles by the end of October, including the approval of ATI shareholders and Canadian securities regulators. But even asÂ AMD nears its goal, rumors surfaced Wednesday that Intel wants to acquire ATI's rival, Nvidia Corp., the only remaining vendor of the graphics cards used in PCs, gaming consoles, set-top boxes and handheld devices. An industry analyst was quoted by the EE Times saying the rumor is swirling, but he believes it is unlikely. Indeed, such a move would be surprising, given Intel's ongoing corporate reorganization. The company is struggling to meet profit targets and has recently cut costs by laying off 10,500 workers and selling several divisions. Also, Nvidia is growing more expensive by the day, as stock traders see a bright future for the sole remaining independent graphics vendor, boosting company stock from $18 to $30 since AMD announced the deal to buy ATI, as of midday Thursday. Intel does not comment on rumors, a spokeswoman said. A Nvidia spokesman declined to comment, calling the rumors mere market speculation. Â
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc.   said on Thursday it will offer a new chip for laptop computers  and said it expects to be able to supply one third of the  market for computer microprocessors by 2008, stepping up its  challenge to rival Intel Corp.&#039;s  dominance.