NORTH READING, MA -- After spending much of the past two years divesting its non-core operations, Teradyne jumped back into acquisition mode, agreeing to buy Nextest Systems in a cash-for-stock deal.

Teradyne will pay about $325 million, and closing is expected in the March quarter, pending Nextest shareholder and antitrust approvals. An OEM of test equipment for flash memory, Nextest had sales of $95.8 million in 2006, of which flash memory test made up about $80 million. "Nextest brings a solid flash memory test product line, plus a very capable development and technical support organization,” said Michael Bradley, president and CEO of Teradyne, in a press release. “Their growing presence in the flash memory test market provides a strong addition to our system-on-chip product offerings." Nextest will be run as a business unit within Teradyne’s Semiconductor Test Division.

The acquisition marks a switch from recent Teradyne moves, which included the selling of its certain assembly operations to Solectron (now Flextronics), and its connector and backplane group to Amphenol.

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