Chipmaker Intel to buy German broadband specialist Lantiq

Chip-making giant Intel plans to buy a German company that specializes in broadband access and home networking technologies, as part of a push to reach more households with high-end technology.

Terms of the acquisition of Lantiq were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in about three months.

Lantiq, which is based in Munich, has more than 2,000 patents covering broadband communications. Intel officials said in a statement that they expect more than 800 million broadband connected households worldwide by 2018, and a combination of their company with Lantiq "can allow global service providers to introduce new home computing experiences and enable consumers to take advantage of a more smart and connected home."

Intel Corp. has struggled with its response to the trend toward mobile computing. The Santa Clara, California, company is the is the world's dominant maker of microprocessor chips that serve as the brains for PCs, but its business has suffered as consumers have increasingly turned to smartphones and tablets that mostly use lower-power chips made by other companies.

Intel also announced in early December that it would acquire PasswordBox, a service that saves and remembers passwords so that users can log into different websites without having to remember or type in their passwords. Terms of that deal also were not disclosed.

Shares of Intel slipped 11 cents to $32.93 in morning trading Monday. The stock jumped nearly 40 percent last year, more than tripling the advance of the Standard & Poor's 500 index, to close 2014 at $36.29.

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