Chipmaker Maxlinear drops $4 bn deal to buy Silicon Motion

U.S. chipmaker Maxlinear said it has scrapped a near $4 billion deal to acquire Taiwan-based Silicon Motion.
MaxLinear had agreed to buy the memory controller-maker Silicon Motion in May last year in a cash-and-stock deal worth $4 billion. Memory controllers are used to manage data in memory chips.

More NAND flash components, including current and up-coming generations of 3D flash produced by Kioxia, Micron Technology, Samsung, SK Hynix, Western Digital and YMTC, are supported by Silicon Motion’s controllers than any other company.

NAND flash memory chips do not need power to retain data and are used in smartphones, personal computers and data center servers.