Rockwell International Corp, El Segundo, California has spent the past few years mostly getting rid of things, but it is now back in buying as well as selling mode, and is to enhance its data communications chip business by acquiring chip designer Brooktree Corp for $15 a share or about $275m cash. Rockwell will take an estimated one-time charge of $120m at the time of acquisition for in-process research and development. Brooktree, San Diego, designs and sells digital and mixed-signal chips for computer graphics, multimedia, imaging, and communications applications, and had sales of $138m in fiscal 1995. It has about 575 employees in North America, Europe and Asia. Brooktree will be operated as a division of Rockwell Semiconductor Systems, of Seal Beach, California.
