Why China Is Shopping for Silicon Valley Chip Companies

Peter Clarke, Electronics360
April 13, 2015

A consortium of investors led by Chinese venture capital company Summitview Capital recently entered into an agreement to acquire Integrated Silicon Solution Inc. (ISSI), a fabless vendor of specialized memory, for $640 million.

Though the board of directors of ISSI (Milpitas, California) has already given its approval, the deal is likely to trigger a review by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CIFUS), an inter-agency committee of the U.S. government that reviews the national security implications of foreign investments in U.S. companies. Because ISSI makes specialized memory chips that are sometimes used in military applications, there is some speculation that CIFUS may seek to block the acquisition by Chinese investors. (The deal also requires shareholder approval and it is not expected to close before the third quarter of 2015 at the earliest.)

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