Chip maker Nvidia (NVDA) this morning said it will purchase Icera, a maker of baseband chips for 3G and 4G handsets, for $367 million in cash.

Icera, based in Bristol in the U.K., has some of the top venture capital names behind it, including Accel Partners and Atlas Venture. The firm closed its first round way back in 2003.

Nvidia said the deal will help it offer both of the most important two chips in the handset, the application process, which it already sells, and the baseband processor, which it has not been able to offer up until now. Nvidia said the baseband chip market is one of the fastest-growing tech segments, at $15 billion annually.

The deal could conceivably help Nvidia in its battle against Qualcomm (QCOM) for business in tablets and smartphones and other gadgets. Qualcomm already sells both applications processors and baseband chips. The company has been working on pushing its own graphics processing circuitry to compete with Nvidia, which, obviously, has a deep history in the graphics chip business.

Intel (INTC) last August agreed to buy the baseband chip business of Infineon Technologies AG (IFNNY) for $1.4 billion. Texas Instruments (TXN), however, is in the process of getting out of the baseband chip business.

Nvidia shares are up a penny in early trading at $19.33.

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Shares of Texas Instruments (TXN) have been halted pending some sort of news. The stock closed down 12 cents, or 0.4%, at $34.11.

Update: TI said it will pay $25 per share in cash to purchase National Semiconductor (NSM) for a total of $6.5 billion. That’s a 78% premium to National’s closing price today of $14.07.

The deal combines the biggest analog chip maker, TI, with one of the largest competitors.

TI’s CEO, Rich Templeton, said the deal was, “about strength and growth,” adding that, “National has an excellent development team, and its products combined with our own can offer customers an analog portfolio of unmatched depth and breadth.

National CEO Don Macleod said the deal would benefit from TI’s “much greater scale in the marketplace,” and its “larger portfolio of products and its large global sales force.”

TI said it will continue to operate National’s manufacturing facilities in Maine, Scotland and Malaysia.

A conference call is scheduled for 5:30 pm, Eastern, which you can listen to on TI’s Web site.

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Shares of Netflix (NFLX) are up $5.64, or 2.6%, at $235.65, adding to gains in the pre-market, following an announcement of a new multi-year deal with Paramount, and following Saturday’s story from The Wall Street Journal that the company is also near a deal with Miramax.

Netflix this morning said it reached a deal with Viacom’s (VIA) Paramount Pictures to add “hundreds” of movie titles for viewing by Netflix’s Canadian customers of its streaming video options. The deal runs for five years and adds over 350 new movies, the company said. More important, perhaps, Netflix said the deal gives its represents “the exclusive subscription television rights to all first-run films” from Paramount for the Canadian market.

The deal follows a story in Saturday’s Journal by Lauren Schuker and Ethan Smith that said independent film gaint Miramax is finalizing a five-year deal worth more than $100 million to stream 700 titles from its catalog via Netflix, citing anonymous sources. The deal would be part of efforts by Miramax’s acquirers to earn back the $660 million they spent buying the company from Disney (DIS) last year.

Titles in the Miramax library include “Kill Bill,” “No Country For Old Men,” the “Scream” and “Scary Movie” series, and “Good Will Hunting,” the authors note. Miramax is reportedly also talking with Google (GOOG) and Facebook about possible distribution, the authors write.

It seems the content pendulum can swing back and forth for Netflix: Last Friday’s trade was mostly about the threat that Starz LL would take away some titles from Netflix.

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Universal Electronics (UEIC) said it has acquired China-based Enson Assets from CG International Holdings for about $110 million. Enson designs, makes and markets remote controls for OEMs. The company is paying for the deal with $95 million in cash plus 1.46 million UEIC shares.
The company said the deal should add [...]

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Gilat Satellite Networks (GILT) this morning said it has agreed to buy Wavestream, a San Dimas, California-based provider of high power solid state amplifiers, for $130 million in cash. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.
The company said the deal is expected to accretive. Gilat [...]

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Synopsys (SNPS) this afternoon said it has acquired Pasadena, California-based Optical Research Associates, a privately held provider of optical design software and  optical engineering services. The company said the deal will allow it to enter the markets for displays and LEDs, as well semiconductor lithography equipment and cameras.
Terms were not [...]

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Amazon.com (AMZN) has agreed to buy Spanish Internet retailer BuyVip for about $96.5 million, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing “a person close to the matter.” The story said the deal will be announced this week. BuyVip offers overstock items from designer brands at significant discounts.
The story said the site [...]

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Blackbaud (BLKB) this morning said it has acquired Santa Barbara, California-based NOZA, creator of what Blackbaud says is the world’s largest searchable database of philanthropic data.
The acquisition was for cash and assumption of debt, but other terns were not disclosed. BLKB said the deal is not expected to have a [...]

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Microsemi (MSCC) this morning said it has agreed to buy Actel (ACTL) for $20.88 a share in cash, or about $430 million net of Actel’s expected cash balance at closing. Mountain View, California-based Actel is a supplier of low-power, mixed-signal field programmable gate arrays.
MSCC said the deal should be 22-28 [...]

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Finisar (FNSR) this morning said it has acquired Broadway Networks for an undisclosed amount of cash. The company said Broadway makes a “pluggable transceive” used in fiber networks. Finsar said the deal will not have a significant impact on revenue or profits in the near term. Broadway has offices in [...]

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