Broadcom agrees to buy NetLogic for $3.7 billion

Broadcom Corp. announced Monday that it agreed to purchase NetLogic Microsystems Inc. for about $3.7 billion.

Irvine-based Broadcom designs and supplies semiconductors to telecommunications and consumer electronics companies with its chips ending up in a list of popular gadgets, such as Nintendo’s Wii, Apple’s iPhones and iPads and an array of phones running Google’s Android operating system.

The company has purchased many smaller firms over the years, as The Times’ David Sarno noted in a February profile of Broadcom.

At $50 a share, NetLogic’s shareholders would be getting a nice payout in the takeover deal, which has been approved by the two company’s boards of directors but still needs U.S. and international regulatory approvals.

Shares of NetLogic soared on the news. They were recently trading at $47.98, up $16.07, or 50%, from their closing price Friday.

NetLogic, based in Santa Clara, also builds computer chips, working on “multi-core and knowledge-based processors,� as well as technology used in next-generation wireless base stations used by telecom companies.

The deal, which the two firms said they expected to complete in the first half of 2012, would help Broadcom expand further into the infrastructure side of the wireless industry and also bring its products to market more quickly.