Although it had previously agreed to accept an offer from a Chinese investment group, memory developer Integrated Silicon Solutions (ISSI) has now accepted an increased offer from Cypress that values the company at $670million.
ISSI is a fabless semiconductor company that designs and markets products for the automotive, communications, industrial and digital consumer markets. While its main products are DRAM and SRAM, it also produces NOR flash and high performance analogue parts.
Both companies appear to be worried that a merger would attract the interest of the US anti trust authorities because they hold leading positions in the SRAM market. However, Cypress says it is prepared to divest the SRAM element of ISSI if that will allow the deal to complete.
Acquiring ISSI would not only add some $330m to Cypress' embedded memories revenue, it would also put Cypress in a much stronger position in the automotive world, where ISSI is a leading supplier of DRAM. It would also sit nicely alongside Cypress' latest acquistion Spansion.
Meanwhile, Cypress has sold its TrueTouch Mobile touchscreen business to Parade Technologies for $100 million in cash.
"We believe Cypress' leading technology and unmatched IP portfolio in touch-sensing will provide immediate growth opportunities, increasing our scale and diversifying our revenue and customer base," said Jack Zhao, Parade's CEO. "More importantly, the combination of two technology leaders will enable Parade's roadmap for display and touch integration solutions in mobile display."
Author
Graham Pitcher
Source: www.newelectronics.co.uk