Semiconductor companies worldwide have established more than two dozen acquisition agreements in 2016-with a combined value of $98.5 billion-compared to the $103.3 billion in purchases struck in 2015 (over 30 deals reached), according to a summary and analysis in IC Insights’ 2017 McClean Report.

According report, M&A agreements’ dollar value in 2015 and 2016 were both about eight times greater than the $12.6 billion annual average of M&A announcements in the five previous years (2010-2014). Nearly half of the 15 largest semiconductor acquisitions in history were announced in the 2015-2016 period, according to a ranking of M&A transactions over $2 billion in the 2017 McClean Report. A total of 27 semiconductor acquisition agreements have had $2 billion values or more since 1999.

Semiconductor M&A greatly accelerated in 2015 and continued to be high in 2016 as companies turned to acquisitions to offset slow growth in major end-use applications, such as smartphones, PCs and tablets. In the last two years, acquisitions have been driven by companies aiming to expand into huge new markets-the IoT, wearable electronics and highly intelligent embedded systems, such as automated driver-assist features in cars and autonomous vehicles in the future. China’s goal of boosting its domestic semiconductor industry has added fuel to the M&A movement.

While Chinese' moves to buy foreign semicon suppliers and assets grabbed a great deal of attention and scrutiny by governments wanting to protect national security and industries, U.S. businesses acquiring other companies, product lines, technologies and assets accounted for 52% of the 2015-2016 M&A value or about $104.5 billion. Asia-Pacific companies were second with 23% of the $201.5 billion two-year total or $46.4 billion. Within the Asia-Pacific region, China represented 4% of the total or $8.3 billion.

By: DocMemory
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