The see-saw bidding for Silicon Valley chip maker Integrated Silicon Solution Inc. continued Thursday as a Chinese investment group topped Cypress Semiconductor with a bid of nearly $700 million.

Shareholders, who are sitting on the sidelines watching the contest, have seen the company's value rise nearly $60 million from the original offer Integrated Silicon was ready to sign in March with Uphill Investment, a Chinese private equity consortium.

The San Jose memory chip maker would make a good fit for Cypress, which sells to many of the same markets. But China is also trying to ramp up its semiconductor industry through investments and acquisitions in a plan announced earlier this year. A related investment group bought Omnivision, which makes digital imaging chips, in late April.

Integrated Silicon said Thursday that Uphill has upped its bid to $21 a share or $698.7 million, a big increase over its original bid of $19.25 a share, or $639.5 million that ISSI's board had accepted in March, before Cypress jumped in to make an offer.

Cypress has not yet responded, but for a month bidding for ISSI has gone back and forth between Uphill and Cypress, a San Jose chip maker headed by T.J. Rodgers.

Just Wednesday, Integrated Silicon announced that it had agreed to the terms of a sale to Cypress, which had bested a previous Uphill bid of $20 a share with a $20.25 bid, or $672.7 million.

Now, the ISSI board is advising shareholders to vote for Uphill's new offer.

By: DocMemory
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