If you read the financial press you may have heard about this takeover two months ago, at the end of last September. But who the heck is Dialog Semiconductor?

Dialog Semiconductor acquires Atmel Corporation

We all know Atmel and its popular AVR devices (Arduino is based on them), but I dare you to name a single Dialog chip. OK, here is one: the DA14580, a Cortex-M0 based Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) controller. So who are these people that can spend more than 4.5 billion dollars on microcontrollers?

Dialog Semiconductor is an Anglo Saxon (based in the UK and in Germany) fabless IC designer house, somewhat like ARM, that creates highly integrated mixed-signal integrated circuits targeted at smartphones, tablets, IoT, etc. You may very well be using one of their products right now without knowing it. Another reason why you may never have heard of the company before is that they only to talk to clients who are capable of spending several millions on their products, which is probably not your case.

A question that remains is: will Atmel as a brand continue to exist?

P.S. The transaction remains subject to approval of Atmel’s stockholders and other customary conditions. The parties continue to expect completion of the transaction during the first quarter of 2016.