Chipzilla of the mobile world Qualcomm wants to slurp Brit vendor CSR... for £1.6bn

UK Bluetooth specialist CSR looks set to wed Qualcomm Inc, after the mobile chip giant said it had agreed to buy the company for £1.6bn ($2.5bn). San Diego-based Qualcomm said that the acquisition would allow it to beef up the firm's Internet of Stuff and car entertainment businesses. The company's chief Steve Mollenkopf said …

[Anonymous Coward]

RIP

Last UK semiconductor designer left, please turn out the lights...

[AndrewDH]

Re: RIP

I think ARM may be a tiny bit British still!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RIP

@AndrewDH - I'm pretty sure you know what I mean...

CSR's SoC bit went to Samsung a couple of years back, Wolfson swallowed by Cirrus Logic in April, Icera to NVidia. I'd like to think ARM are large enough to hold out against a hostile bid, but I'm not a gambling person...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RIP

I'd like to think ARM are large enough to hold out against a hostile bid, but I'm not a gambling person...

ARM are tiny, but the potential buyers are few. The most obvious (Intel) would never get away with it on competition grounds. Any of ARM's big customers (Appsung, say) could, but the rest of ARM's customer's (aka Appsung's competitors) would swiftly desert it - leaving Appsung with little of value for its money. There's a reason a minnow like ARM has stayed independent in a sea of sharks for so long.

[chris_stjohn]

Re: RIP

Don't knock the minnow/shark thing - it worked for Symbian... erm, hang on.... I'll get my coat!

[Alan Denman]

re "subject to regulatory and shareholder approval "

Regulators really need to look very carefully here.

Qualcomm patents has meant that those with superior big.little chipset have not been able to compete on price, those giving us lower tech on the CPU front.

This might cement the monopoly and thus be further bad news for competitors and even ARM

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RIP

>CSR's SoC bit went to Samsung

It was CSR's mobile phone BT/WI-Fi/GPS chip business that was sold to Samsung when CSR decided to exit the handset market.