Freescale to be acquired for $16 billion?

Freescale on Monday confirmed that it "is in discussions with parties relating to a possible business transaction." The chip company did not provide further details about a possible acquisition and mentioned that "there can be no assurances that any transaction will result from these discussions."

However, the New York Times reports that a consortium of investment firms was close to reaching a deal to acquire Freescale for more than $16 billion. If completed, the deal would be the largest leveraged buyout ever in the technology sector, the newspaper said.

Following the announcement, Freescale’s stock jumped about 17% in early morning trading and hovered around $36, giving the company a market capitalization of about $14.7 billion.

Freescale is best known as manufacturer of wireless communications, computer networking and the automotive semiconductor devices. Most recently, the company confirmed that it will offer FlexRay communications chips for automobiles and announced that it has begun mass production of magneto-resistive random access memory, short MRAM.