Texas Instruments Buys National Semiconductor For $6.5B

CWmike writes "Texas Instruments on Monday announced it has agreed to acquire semiconductor company National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion in an all-cash transaction. TI, which makes low-power chips, said it would combine its 30,000 analog products and advanced manufacturing capabilities with the offerings of National Semiconductor, which makes analog integrated circuits. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, and is expected to close in six to nine months, the companies said in a joint statement. Look out, [chip maker name here]?"

Re:that roaring sound you heard in the distance...

[afidel]

I would expect a lot of innovation out of this deal. No, not from the stupidly large mega-company, but rather from all the fabless startup companies that will be founded by all the good engineers that TI lays off.

Re:that roaring sound you heard in the distance...

[shadowofwind]

Harder to do that these days when the big companies own all the patents.

Stability

[ChrisMaple]

National Semi, although one of the big players and a significant innovator, has a history of getting into financial trouble. Texas Instruments is a more stable operation and has always given the impression that it was run by more sensible people. If the corporate cultures are compatible, I think this move is for the best.

Re:Not so fun if you work for National Instruments

[Alex Belits]

...
-- Who keeps Windows in the labs?
-- We do!, we do! ...

(for those who don't know, the abomination known as LabVIEW)

Re:"All cash"?

[MightyYar]

Corporate tax laws should be changed so they're taxed for wealth as well as income.

Because it would be better if they paid all the rich owners a dividend?

Ask the bank who is holding their $6.5 billion why they won't loan you any of that money, and the answers to THAT are why our economy is in the shitter.

Re:Still shocked!

[jimmyswimmy]

You shouldn't be. You can't do digital without analog, despite what every pointy-headed manager puts in his powerpoint slides. Power is analog and that's a sizeable fraction of your computer budget. Motor control (hard drives), sensors (you name it), a lot of user interface, are all analog. Even signal transmission is analog, although if you set your thresholds just right you can pretend it's digital. In fact this is where a lot of semi companies make their money, by encapsulating the messy analog into the chip so all you have to do is put down two capacitors and hook up the digital interface, because people are escared of analog.

Can you tell I'm an analog guy? I sure hope so.

Re:Good.

[jimmyswimmy]

Well, at least when I got out of the semi business a few years ago you could still do a lot with old 5" and 6" wafers. There's a lot to be said for having your own process line, despite the fabless trend, especially in the analog world. An in-house analog process enables a semi manufacturer to build unique parts that a competitor can't as easily replicate. If you can get a higher voltage or current in a similar sized driver IC you can outsell on features, or you can shrink the die and match features and outsell on price. But if you're both buying the same process from the foundry, what advantage do you have that the competition can't get by offering your engineers more money?

Re:Still shocked!

[thegarbz]

There's very little that is truly done digitally. Even switch mode powersupplies, switch means digital right? As in turning on and off right?, no these are analogue components with oscillators and complex feedback loops. Not to mention precision electronics often based on linear regulators with highly accurate temperature controlled references. Then there's power conversion and line matching too. The output of your serial port may be digital to you, but to me it's a charge pump converting digital logic levels to +/-15V. Data conversion, sensors, and even digitally sounding and looking things like hall effect sensors in fans which produce a pulse when the fan turns actually have a large analogue component.

Without analogue our digital wouldn't work. Analogue circuitry does everything from providing power, to providing time references for digital pulses.