(Telecompaper) Cypress Semiconductor and Spansion announced a definitive agreement to merge in an all-stock transaction valued at USD 4 billion. The post-merger company will generate more than USD 2 billion in revenue annually and create a leading global provider of microcontrollers and specialized memories for embedded systems. Under the terms of the agreement, Spansion shareholders will receive 2.457 Cypress shares for each Spansion share they own. The shareholders of each company will own approximately 50 percent of the post-merger company. The company will have an eight-person board of directors consisting of four Cypress directors, including T.J. Rodgers and Eric Benhamou, and four Spansion directors, including John Kispert and Ray Bingham, the Spansion chairman, who will serve as the non-executive chairman of the combined company. The group will be headquartered in California and called Cypress Semiconductor. The merger is expected to result in more than USD 135 million in cost synergies on an annualized basis within three years and to add to non-GAAP earnings within the first full year after closing. The combined company will continue to pay USD 0.11 per share in quarterly dividends to shareholders. Closing is subject to approval by Cypress and Spansion stockholders and review by regulators in the US, Germany and China. Cypress and Spansion expect the deal to close in the first half of 2015.