Microsemi CEO would kill some Actel products

Dylan McGrath, EETimes
10/4/2010 6:26 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO—In making a $430 million cash tender offer to acquire programmable logic supplier Actel Corp., analog and mixed-signal chip vendor Microsemi Corp. is seeking to broaden its product offerings to appeal to core customers in the aerospace, defense and industrial markets, according to company executives. But the company is likely to kill some Actel product lines, they said.

In a conference call Monday (Oct. 4) following the announcement of the tender offer, James Peterson, Microsemi's president and CEO, said Microsemi would trim some "non-productive" Actel product offerings aimed at commercial markets where Actel lags behind programmable market leaders Xilinx Inc. and Altera Corp. While he stressed that Microsemi would not kill all Actel commercial products, he said the company would take a hard look at products that don't compete effectively with the big players' offerings. Peterson did not mention any specific products that could be discontinued.

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