Travelling On The Silicon Road

Not too long back, quite a few companies, mostly ranking in the semicon top 10, counted a diverse portfolio as their strength. With the brutal and dynamic market conditions, this is becoming a luxury that only a few can afford. 

Following the trend of consolidation and focusing on core biz activities, Infineon will sell its hard disk drive (HDD) design and manufacture business to LSI Corp. LSI expects the acquisition will further its goal of becoming the leading worldwide provider of silicon solutions for hard-drive makers, especially at a time when the HDD market is going from mechanical to solid state drives. And they get an inlet to a top-tier customer, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

For Infineon, it is shedding a non-core biz, an area where they did not stand much of a chance amongst competitors like Marvell, LSI, TI and STMicroelectronics – and to focus its resources on its core businesses where it can be among the top few.

Just a year back, another acquisition between the same companies took place; albeit in a reverse direction - last August, Infineon agreed to pay $563.6 million to acquire LSI’s mobility products business to strengthen their position in mobile phone market. And the top tier customer base to be tapped there was Samsung.

They sure dig each others’ technology!!