What does Freescale merger with NXP mean?

Question

I am surprised little has been said up to now about this merger of two big shakers in the MCU market. Here are possible outcomes as I see them: Less electronic products and therefore maybe less competition? Your favourite processor disappears because of overlap. Support changes due to consolidation, Jobs in Austin Texas or overseas in headquarters due to merger. Sales force reductions. Inventory changes over time. Other factors. Of course this may take a while to be finalized because of the following: Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act in US. Freescale Semiconductor ( FSL ) and NXP Semiconductors ( NXPI ) are in fact named competitors. To facilitate antitrust approval, NXP has committed to divest its RF (radio frequency) power business up front. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States review to determine if the deal is in the national interest since NXP is a Dutch company. The proxy statement approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This is mainly a formality since any problems has 30 days to fix with a new proxy. Freescale and NXP shareholder approvals of course. Since the premium is low, there have been many class action attempts by lawyers on the Freescale side. Feel free to comment.

dougw · Answer

When Ti acquired National Semiconductor and Burr Brown and Luminary Micro and Chipcon it got stronger and is now the #3 semiconductor company in the world. All of these companies were competitors of Ti.

When Motorola split off Freescale and On Semiconductor into separate companies, all 3 got weaker.

When Philips acquired Signetics and VLSI Technologies it got stronger. When it split off NXP it isn't clear how well it turned out, despite the new company continuing to make acquisitions and divestitures.

If Freescale merges with NXP, it will get back some of what it lost with On Semi.

I don't know if this merger would succeed, but I hope they both survive in some form, even if it is a single form.

michaelkellett · Answer

I don't have high hopes for this - Freescale already have too many micro lines and adding NXP's quite nice ARM Cortex portfolio will only add to the confusion. Will the new company really support both properly ?

Motorola lost their way ages ago - and have remained lost through On and Freescale spin offs. I don't think that chucking NXP into the mess will help.

I'd love to be proved wrong.

MK

What does Freescale merger with NXP mean?

I am surprised little has been said up to now about this merger of two big shakers in the MCU market. Here are possible outcomes as I see them:

Less electronic products and therefore maybe less competition?

Your favourite processor disappears because of overlap.

Support changes due to consolidation,

Jobs in Austin Texas or overseas in headquarters due to merger.

Sales force reductions.

Inventory changes over time.

Other factors.

Of course this may take a while to be finalized because of the following:

Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act in US.

Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) and NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) are in fact named competitors. To facilitate antitrust approval, NXP has committed to divest its RF (radio frequency) power business up front.

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States review to determine if the deal is in the national interest since NXP is a Dutch company.

The proxy statement approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This is mainly a formality since any problems has 30 days to fix with a new proxy.

Freescale and NXP shareholder approvals of course. Since the premium is low, there have been many class action attempts by lawyers on the Freescale side.

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