Broadcom snaps up Brocade as tech merger fever heats up
It’s turning out to be quite the season of tech mergers and acquisitions. According to the New York Times, chipmaker Broadcom has agreed to snap up Brocade Communications Systems, which makes routers and other networking gear, for a reported $5.5 billion. Broadcom makes computer chips for a long list of tech heavyweights, including Intel and Apple.
Broadcom itself was bought up by Avago in 2015, and Avago then changed their name to Broadcom. This latest deal comes among a flurry of mergers: Qualcomm just bought chipmaker NXP for $38 billion last week, right after NXP merged with Freescale Semiconductor in a $12 billion deal, and Japan’s Softbank shocked the tech world this summer by snapping up British chipmaker ARM for $32 billion.
What’s driving all the dealmaking? Analysts say the rise of the “internet of things” is helping to fuel chip demand, because all those “smarty things” – which eventually, will be every “thing” – will all need little computer chip brains. And that’s a lot of chips.
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