Cross-county chip-making rivals Broadcom Corp., Irvine, and Conexant Systems Inc., Newport Beach, also have been busy dealmakers in the past year, trying to outflank one another and their other competitors.
Broadcom designs chips for a variety of high-speed communications uses,set-top boxes, cable modems, digital subscriber lines, satellite transmission and high-speed networking.
As part of Broadcom’s “larger strategy to provide end-to-end broadband connectivity,” CEO Henry Nicholas said, the company has made several acquisitions this year, including the $440 million purchase of Sunnyvale-based home networking technology company Epigram Inc. and the $254 million pickup of Vancouver, B.C.-based HotHaus Technologies Inc., a maker of embedded communications software specializing in voice-over-Internet applications.
The strategy paid off on one front in September, when technology developed by Epigram and Lucent Technologies was selected by an industry group as the standard for the next generation of home networking technology.
Broadcom also acquired: modem software maker AltoCom Inc., Mountain View, for $205 million; graphics chip maker Stellar Semiconductor Inc., San Jose, for $155 million; network security firm BlueSteel Networks Inc., for $154.4 million; interactive-communications software maker Digital Furnace Corp., Atlanta, for $136 million; and chip designer Armedia Inc., Bangalore, India, for $67 million.
All told, Broadcom acquisitions announced in the past 12 months totaled $1.41 billion.
Not to be outdone,at least, not by much,Conexant spent $1.31 billion on acquisitions in the past 12 months, also to broaden its product base. Most notable was the $1.1 billion pickup of Framingham, Mass.-based Maker Communications Inc., which closed last month. Maker is a leading provider of network processors and software.
Conexant’s other recent acquisitions were British fiber-optic circuit maker Microcosm Communications and the wireless broadband business unit of Oak Technology Inc. of Sunnyvale.
