Infineon buys IR, stops editor in his tracks
Every so often, a news story pops up which stops you in your tracks. Infineon's acquisition of International Rectifier is one of those stories. The $3billion acquisition is as close as you come to a blockbuster in the dog days of August.
The industry indulges in a continuous round of speculation about who might buy whom and the majority of these rumours come to nothing. The interesting thing about this deal is that there wasn't a whisper.
IR has been pursuing a power agenda since 1947, latterly, it's been at the forefront of developing GaN on silicon technology. Infineon also has a strong power heritage and has lately been pushing towards making devices on 300mm thinned wafers. It's also heading a project designed to make Europe the leading region for power semiconductor development.
One thing you always look for in deals such as these are 'efficiencies', translated as redundancies and similar. However, Infineon says the acquisition will create a 'highly complementary and innovative semiconductor product portfolio'. We shall see, but at first sight, the deal seems to make sense.
