The announcement this week that TI is to purchase National Semiconductor led me write an insight on the subject (published yesterday: http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1007580).It also gotme thinking aboutother recentM&A activity thatis transforming thesemiconductor market.
While being big news, the TI/National Semi deal will have its most impact on the analog IC market where TIwill become the "Gorilla in the Room;" as the resources it has at hand will far outweigh much of the competition.
Other big acquisitions of noteinclude Qualcomm's purchase of Atheros which willincrease itsshare of the mobile handset IC marketandpossiblyincrease the connectivitytechnology in the Snapdragon platform.
AlsoIntel's purchase of Infineon's Wireless Solutions businesspaves the way for the company to automatically gain significant share of some sections of the mobile handset IC market and offers an Intel the opportunity to leverage Infineon's products and make a play for the platform solutions market that Qualcomm currently dominates.
See http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1007536for amore in depth view.
Where will it all end??
