Atmel Corp, the San Jose, California-based memory and microcontroller giant, has acquired the integrated circuit business of Temic Telefunken Microelectronic GmbH from its new owner, Vishay Intertechnology Inc. Vishay acquired the unit as part of Temic’s semiconductor business, which it bought at the end of last year for $500m. It will keep the discrete, power IC and infra red data communications of Temec. Atmel will pay $140m in cash for the rest, which includes radio frequency, silicon-germanium, space and satellite, analog and mixed-signal capabilities aimed at telecommunications, automotive and consumer markets. Temic’s IC sales were approximately $300m last year. Atmel says the buy will strengthen its system-level integration capabilities and add silicon-germanium process technology to its existing CMOS and BiCMOS.
