旧金山—过去三年来半导体行业整合的空前浪潮最终可能会放缓。还是它？

在今年第一个月宣布的主要交易中的总体停滞可能不过是并购狂潮恢复前的暂停。目前，围绕东芝公司半导体业务的猜测在不断加剧。据报道，东芝正在考虑剥离该业务。

IC Insights的高级市场研究分析师Rob Lineback在接受EE Times采访时说：“我还没有准备宣布收购浪潮。” “这有点像海洋，潮涨潮落。”

IHS Markit嵌入式处理器首席分析师Tom Hackenberg也认为并购浪潮尚未结束。“我当然希望有更多的合并，”哈肯堡告诉《 EE Times》。

Still, the numbers show that consolidation did slow down—albeit just a tad—last year. Nevertheless, 2016 was a big year for acquisitions by historical standards.

The total value of semiconductor industry acquisitions announced in 2016 came in at roughly $98.5 billion, down from a record $103.3 billion in 2015, according to market research firm IC Insights Inc. Both years’ totals represented about eight times the average annual value of semiconductor industry M&A activity over the previous five years, $12.8 billion, the firm said.

In all, there were about 24 major semiconductor industry acquisitions announced in 2016, down from 30 in 2015, IC Insights said.

Lineback said he expects 2017 to shape up a lot like 2016 in terms of M&A activity. In the first half of last year, acquisition announcements slowed down as the industry “digested” deals announced in 2015, with a comparatively small $4.5 billion worth of deals announced. But in the second half of last year the wave intensified, resulting in $94 billion worth of deals, including blockbuster deals like Qualcomm’s $39 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors and Softbank’s $32 billion deal to buy ARM.

Lineback noted that the stock market has rallied in recent months and that the cost to acquire chip companies is up noticeably from where it was a year ago or two years ago.

Asked what companies might still be attractive acquisition targets, Lineback pointed to several firms that have been the target of M&A speculation for the past year, including analog/mixed-signal chip vendor Maxim Integrated Products Inc., programmable logic vendor Xilinx Inc., network processor vendor Cavium Inc. and Apple iPhone supplier Skyworks Solutions Inc.

“Those companies that didn’t make any big acquisitions ended up sticking out as possible acquisition targets,” Lineback said. “People are waiting to see if big companies like TI that didn’t make any big acquisitions lately will do so.”

Hackenberg declined to speculate on semiconductor companies that may be ripe for acquisition. But he said that continued consolidation will be driven by, among other things, transitions to new materials and technologies as the semiconductor industry grapples with the increased cost of chip manufacturing at the most advanced nodes.