After many years of consolidation, the world of computer chips has come to be dominated by two groups of companies.

On one side are very large companies that acquire other large companies, such as $350 billion Nvidia, which is spending $40 billion to buy ARM, or $100 billion Advanced Micro Devices, which is spending $36 billion to buy Xilinx.

And then, there are companies of somewhat more normal scale, such as Synaptics of San Jose, a $3.4 billion company that sells about $1.4 billion a year in parts that go into mobile phones, personal computers, and an increasing array of devices for the so-called Internet of Things: wireless doorbells, intelligent thermostats, smart speakers, etc.

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