Local computer chip manufacturer to merge with overseas firm

Several high-tech employers have left Colorado Springs in recent years, but business leaders say Atmel won’t follow the trend despite merging with a London corporation.

In an announcement Sunday, Dialog Semiconductor PLC said it will acquire Atmel Corporation in a cash and stock transaction valued at $4.6 billion. The deal is to be finalized in the first quarter of 2016.

Atmel employs around 1,000 people and has made computer chips at a plant on Cheyenne Mountain Boulevard since 1989.

Dialog is one of Apple’s primary suppliers for parts used in the iPhone and iPad. Dialog said the deal gives it a wider customer base in mobile, medical, navigation and automotive industries.

Several Atmel employees said they don’t know much about the deal but aren’t concerned about layoffs or major changes at the plant.

“It seems like it’s going to be pretty positive for us,” Bryan Roberts, a 21-year Atmel employee, said. “We researched Dialog. There had been rumors about it all summer.”

Bob Cope, the city’s economic development manager, said Dialog is a growing corporation and is more likely to expand operations at Atmel than reduce them.

“I understand the apprehension any time that there’s a merger,” Cope said. “People worry about redundancies and potential layoffs, and that does happen from time to time. But my sense of this transaction is that it’s really a growth opportunity.”

The Dialog-Atmel deal is the fourth large transaction this year involving the semiconductor industry.

Atmel began in 1984 and is based in San Jose, California. The corporation began manufacturing in Colorado Springs in 1989. The plant makes half of the chips sold by the Atmel and is the lone plant of its kind in Colorado Springs.