ST Microelectronics plans to buy Motorola's chip division ?!

[Admiral]

Found some news on the local site XtremPC that goes like this:

In the Financial Times newspaper there were news about ST Microelectronics negociating with Motorola the posibility of acquiring Motorola's microchip division. ST Microelectronics hasn't confirmed the news but french and italian officials said the negociations had began. For those who don't know, ST Microelectronics is "split" (owned) betwen the french and the italian government. Closing this deal will result in the creation of the second large chip maker company in the World, after Intel.

I tryed to verify the news on the Financial Times' site but I can't get past the industries page, 400 error and all.
You could look for the news in the IT section.



Now, I was under the impression that STM sold their chip making division, thus the main reason PowerVR couldn't bring their chips to market anymore and now STM plans to rebuild such a division ?

[Wombat]

I have a hard time seeing the SEC allowing this to go through. Considering Motorola's work, I don't see the US gov't allowing part of that to be foreign-owned. They'll find some other official reason to turn it down though.