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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]?"
is the sound of thousands of laser printers firing up, and spitting out epic number of resumes
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
What do you mean? Texas Instruments samples have always been free for me!
Dear valued customer,
I am excited to let you know that TI has signed a definitive agreement to purchase National Semiconductor, uniting two industry leaders that have a common commitment to solving your analog needs. I want to reinforce TI's commitment to you, our customer, as we merge our two companies.
This acquisition will allow us to address your analog needs with a product portfolio of unmatched breadth and depth. National's 12,000 products plus TI's 30,000 means more performance, power and packaging options when selecting the right ICs for your application. And we'll provide a common set of best-in-class online tools to make the selection and design process easier.
Our combined sales and applications team of 2,500 will be larger than any in the industry so we can provide more customers with greater face-to-face support than ever before.
Our manufacturing operations will offer more capacity to support your growth. TI's fabs and National's available capacity can enable higher production levels.
While both companies will operate independently pending the close, our goal thereafter is to make the integration process as seamless as possible. No requalification of products will be necessary since National's manufacturing sites will continue to be utilized. Part numbers from both companies will remain the same. There will be no obsolescence of products.
I'm excited about what the integration of our two companies will mean for you: an unmatched portfolio to meet your analog needs, an extensive sales and applications network to ease the design process, and manufacturing capacity to support your growth.
You can learn more about the acquisition at www.ti.com/acquire, including answers to frequently asked questions and video messages from TI leaders regarding the acquisition.
Thank you for choosing TI. I look forward to a great future together.
Real calculators are RPN anyway.
Sent from my PDP-11
Calculators real RPN are anyway.
That fixed you for there.
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.
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BAE Systems completes purchase of Fairchild Imaging.
"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" - Doctor Who
TI no longer keeps stock on many chips. When the distributors run out the factory sits and waits for the orders to come in. Some of these chips have lead times of 26 weeks, half a year! You're basically screwed and have to start bargaining with brokers.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
... ...
-- Who keeps Windows in the labs?
-- We do!, we do!
(for those who don't know, the abomination known as LabVIEW)
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
National had some the oldest fab equipment in the business. That place had equipment even China didn't want.
But you know what they say.
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2005/09/real_men_have_f.php
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
TI has $6.5 billion in cash lying around and we're wondering why our economy is in the shitter and where all the jobs are?
Corporate tax laws should be changed so they're taxed for wealth as well as income. Maybe they could put that money to work for something besides buying out the competition.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Looks like the folks at National Semiconductor... (puts on sunglasses)... cashed in their chips.
YEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHH !
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.
Just my $0.55 (US inflation, 1774-2008, for $0.02)
You don't pay the RRP for a chip though, you get a NSM sales rep (or any company) and you explain that you would like to use their chip, but the competitors chip is better priced and offers similar features. The prices then become more competitive. I'm guessing that won't work for very small numbers of chips, but if you're only using a few what difference does a few dollars make?
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.
While i'm at it, i might as well ask. What is the most everyday use of a graphical calculator?
Outside of school? Not a lot for me. They were great for solving complex equations in school (and the graphing capabilities helped A LOT there), but out in the real world they haven't helped nearly as much.
That said, I think a lot of their utility has been diminished by smartphones and/or PDA's. A lot of what made such calculators attractive was their programmability. They were the original "There's an app for that" device for calculations, though of much more limited popularity. Example: I often use my phone for homebrew beer info tracking. A lot of that is database driven where the phones didn't excel, but a lot of it is also simply plugging in numbers to get a result (ie, starting and final specific gravity + temperature to find out ABV of a brew). Phones can do that now.
In a similar vein, when I was preparing for my pilot's license I used an electronic E6B Flight Calculator. Those aren't programmable graphing calculators, but they are also very purpose built devices. After passing my exam though I've never touched my E6B again though - I have an E6B app on my phone that's always with me.
What it comes down to at this point I think is testing. Students can't be allowed to have a fully internet capable smart phone on them while testing, so the more limited calculators allow them more restricted capabilities.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain