Japanese Renesas to buy US chip maker IDT for $ 6.7 billion

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese chip maker Renesas Electronics Corp (6723.Tsaid Tuesday that he had agreed to purchase the US-based Integrated Device Technology Inc (IDTI.O) for approximately $ 6.7 billion, to strengthen its expertise in autonomous automotive technologies.

The agreement allows Renesas, second only to NXP Semiconductors NV in car chips, to bring IDT's expertise in wireless networking and data storage chips, crucial for autonomous cars.

Renesas will pay $ 49.00 per share in cash for all outstanding shares of IDT, against a close of $ 42.08 on Monday, and expects to close this deal in the first half of 2019.

It will finance the acquisition with 679 billion yen ($ 6.1 billion) of bank loans and cash, the group said in a statement.

Renesas was created in 2010 following the merger of NEC Corp. (6701.Tand the chip division and Renesas Technology, which was itself created by the merger of chip units from Hitachi Ltd and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

It was late to join a wave of consolidation in the flea industry as it struggled to recover from the damage suffered by major factories during an earthquake that hit Japan in 2011.

Last year, it bought the US chip maker Intersil Corp. for $ 3.2 billion to expand its portfolio of analog chips, which process signals such as sound, light, and temperature before converting them in digital signals.