The past few years have seen a wave of major mergers and acquisitions in the semiconductor industry, many of them with strong implications for the mobile industry landscape. The latest is a $21bn all-stock deal for Analog Devices (ADI) to buy Maxim, which will create a stronger challenge to Texas Instruments in the analog chip market, while extending ADI’s reach in the 5G and automotive spaces. This is the third largest deal of recent years, behind Avago’s purchase of Broadcom for $37bn and Softbank’s of ARM for $32bn. It is also ADI’s second large acquisition in three years, having bought Linear Technology for $14.8bn in 2017 to expand its analog business. Vincent Roche, ADI’s CEO, said the Maxim deal is…