Chipmakers reap rewards of booming sales

 

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Investors bet Micron Technology and others are still on the upswing of a memory sales cycle, as Texas Instruments acquires Burr-Brown and Philips Electronics' semiconductor unit expects a surge in second-quarter sales.

Micron looks to cash in on rising prices Memory chips are still a boom-and-bust business, but investors are betting big that Micron Technology, which reports earnings today, and others are still on the upswing segment of the cycle. Texas Instruments buys chip company for $7.6 billion Looking to boost its offerings of analog chips, Texas Instruments says it will pay roughly $7.6 billion in stock to acquire Burr-Brown, a maker of chips that convert signals from analog to digital. Philips expects to report surge in chip sales Philips Electronics says its Philips Semiconductors unit expects second-quarter sales to surge more than 50 percent over the same period last year.